Such utterances are characteristic of Zunz, the politician. His best energies and efforts, however, were devoted to his researches. Science, he believed, would bring about amelioration of political conditions; science, he hoped, would preserve Judaism from the storms and calamities of his generation, for the fulfilment of its historical mission. Possessed by this idea, he wrote Die Gottesdienstlichen Vortraege der Juden ("Jewish Homiletics," 1832), the basis of the future science of Judaism, the first clearing in the primeval forest of rabbinical writings, through which the pioneer led his followers with steady step and hand, as though walking on well trodden ground. Heinrich Heine, who appreciated Zunz at his full worth, justly reckoned this book "among the noteworthy productions of the higher criticism," and another reviewer with equal justice ranks it on a level with the great works of Boeckh, Diez, Grimm, and others of that period, the golden age of philological research in Germany.

Like almost all that Zunz wrote, Die Gottesdienstlichen Vortraege der Juden was the result of a polemic need. By nature Zunz was a controversialist. Like a sentinel upon the battlements, he kept a sharp lookout upon the land. Let the Jews be threatened with injustice by ruler, statesman, or scholar, and straightway he attacked the enemy with the weapons of satire and science. One can fancy that the cabinet order prohibiting German sermons in the synagogue, and so stifling the ambition of his youth, awakened the resolve to trace the development of the sermon among Jews, and show that thousands of years ago the well-spring of religious instruction bubbled up in Judah's halls of prayer, and has never since failed, its wealth of waters overflowing into the popular Midrash, the repository of little known, unappreciated treasures of knowledge and experience, accumulated in the course of many centuries.

In the preface to this book, Zunz, the democrat, says that for his brethren in faith he demands of the European powers, "not rights and liberties, but right and liberty. Deep shame should mantle the cheek of him who, by means of a patent of nobility conferred by favoritism, is willing to rise above his co-religionists, while the law of the land brands him by assigning him a place among the lowest of his co-citizens. Only in the rights common to all citizens can we find satisfaction; only in unquestioned equality, the end of our pain. Liberty unshackling the hand to fetter the tongue; tolerance delighting not in our progress, but in our decay; citizenship promising protection without honor, imposing burdens without holding out prospects of advancement; they all, in my opinion, are lacking in love and justice, and such baneful elements in the body politic must needs engender pestiferous diseases, affecting the whole and its every part."

Zunz sees a connection between the civil disabilities of the Jews and their neglect of Jewish science and literature. Untrammelled, instructive speech he accounts the surest weapon. Hence the homilies of the Jews appear to him to be worthy, and to stand in need, of historical investigation, and the results of his research into their origin, development, and uses, from the time of Ezra to the present day, are laid down in this epoch-making work.

The law forbidding the bearing of German names by Jews provoked Zunz's famous and influential little book, "The Names of the Jews," like most of his later writings polemic in origin, in which respect they remind one of Lessing's works.

In the ardor of youth Zunz had borne the banner of reform; in middle age he became convinced that the young generation of iconoclasts had rushed far beyond the ideal goal of the reform movement cherished in his visions. As he had upheld the age and sacred uses of the German sermon against the assaults of the orthodox; so for the benefit and instruction of radical reformers, he expounded the value and importance of the Hebrew liturgy in profound works, which appeared during a period of ten years, crystallizing the results of a half-century's severe application. They rounded off the symmetry of his spiritual activity. For, when Midrashic inspiration ceased to flow, the piut—synagogue poetry—established itself, and the transformation from the one into the other was the active principle of neo-Hebraic literature for more than a thousand years. Zunz's vivifying sympathies knit the old and the new into a wondrously firm historical thread. Nowhere have the harmony and continuity of Jewish literary development found such adequate expression as in his Synagogale Poesie des Mittelalters ("Synagogue Poetry of the Middle Ages," 1855), Ritus des synagogalen Gottesdienstes ("The Ritual of the Synagogue," 1859), and Litteraturgeschichte der synagogalen Poesie ("History of Synagogue Poetry," 1864), the capstone of his literary endeavors.

In his opinion, the only safeguard against error lies in the pursuit of science, not, indeed, dryasdust science, but science in close touch with the exuberance of life regulated by high-minded principles, and transfigured by ideal hopes. Sermons and prayers in harmonious relation, he believed,[94] will "enable some future generation to enjoy the fruits of a progressive, rational policy, and it is meet that science and poetry should be permeated with ideas serving the furtherance of such policy. Education is charged with the task of moulding enlightened minds to think the thoughts that prepare for right-doing, and warm, enthusiastic hearts to execute commendable deeds. For, after all is said and done, the well-being of the community can only grow out of the intelligence and the moral life of each member. Every individual that strives to apprehend the harmony of human and divine elements attains to membership in the divine covenant. The divine is the aim of all our thoughts, actions, sentiments, and hopes. It invests our lives with dignity, and supplies a moral basis for our relations to one another. Well, then, let us hope for redemption—for the universal recognition of a form of government under which the rights of man are respected. Then free citizens will welcome Jews as brethren, and Israel's prayers will be offered up by mankind."

These are samples of the thoughts underlying Zunz's great works, as well as his numerous smaller, though not less important, productions: biographical and critical essays, legal opinions, sketches in the history of literature, reviews, scientific inquiries, polemical and literary fragments, collected in his work Zur Geschichte und Litteratur ("Contributions to History and Literature," 1873), and in three volumes of collected writings. Since the publication of his "History of Synagogue Poetry," Zunz wrote only on rare occasions. His last work but one was Deutsche Briefe (1872) on German language and German intellect, and his last, an incisive and liberal contribution to Bible criticism (Studie zur Bibelkritik, 1874), published in the Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlaendischen Gesellschaft in Leipsic. From that time on, when the death of his beloved wife, Adelheid Zunz, a most faithful helpmate, friend, counsellor, and support, occurred, he was silent.

Zunz had passed his seventieth year when his "History of Synagogue Poetry" appeared. He could permit himself to indulge in well-earned rest, and from the vantage-ground of age inspect the bustling activity of a new generation of friends and disciples on the once neglected field of Jewish science.

Often as the cause of religion and civil liberty received a check at one place or another, during those long years when he stood aside from the turmoil of life, a mere looker-on, he did not despair; he continued to hope undaunted. Under his picture he wrote sententiously: "Thought is strong enough to vanquish arrogance and injustice without recourse to arrogance and injustice."

Zunz's life and work are of incalculable importance to the present age and to future generations. With eagle vision he surveyed the whole domain of Jewish learning, and traced the lines of its development. Constructive as well as critical, he raised widely scattered fragments to the rank of a literature which may well claim a place beside the literatures of the nations. Endowed with rare strength of character, he remained unflinchingly loyal to his ancestral faith, "the exalted hobby of his soul"—a model for three generations. Jewish literature owes to him a scientific style. He wrote epigrammatic, incisive, perspicuous German, stimulating and suggestive, such as Lessing used. The reform movement he supported as a legitimate development of Judaism on historical lines. On the other hand, he fostered loyalty to Judaism by lucidly presenting to young Israel the value of his faith, his intellectual heritage, and his treasures of poetry. Zunz, then, is the originator of a momentous phase in our development, producing among its adherents as among outsiders a complete revolution in the appreciation of Judaism, its religious and intellectual aspects. Together with self-knowledge he taught his brethren self-respect. He was, in short, a clear thinker and acute critic; a German, deeply attached to his beloved country, and fully convinced of the supremacy of German mind; at the same time, an ardent believer in Judaism, imbued with some of the spirit of the prophets, somewhat of the strength of Jewish heroes and martyrs, who sacrificed life for their conviction, and with dying lips made the ancient confession: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one!"

His name is an abiding possession for our nation; it will not perish from our memory. "Good night, my prince! O that angel choirs might lull thy slumbers!"



HEINRICH HEINE AND JUDAISM

I

No modern poet has aroused so much discussion as Heinrich Heine. His works are known everywhere, and quotations from them—gorgeous butterflies, stinging gnats, buzzing bees—whizz and whirr through the air of our century. They are the vade mecum of modern life in all its moods and variations.

This high regard is a recent development. Within the last thirty years a complete change has taken place in public opinion. Soon after the poet's death, he was entirely neglected. The Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung, whose columns had for decades been enriched with his contributions, took three months to get up a little obituary notice. Then followed a period of acrimonious detraction; at last, cordial appreciation has come.

The conviction has been growing that in Heine the German nation must revere its greatest lyric poet since Goethe, and as time removes him from us, the baser elements of his character recede into the background, his personality is lost sight of, and his poetry becomes the paramount consideration.

What is the attitude of Judaism? Does it acknowledge Heine as its son? Is it disposed to accept cum beneficio inventarii the inheritance he has bequeathed to it? To answer these questions we must review Heine's life, his relations to Judaism, his opinions on Jewish subjects, and the qualities which prove him heir to the peculiarities of the Jewish race.

Heine's family was Jewish. On the paternal side it can be traced to Meyer Samson Popert and Fromet Heckscher of Altona; on the maternal side further back, to Isaac van Geldern, who emigrated in about 1700 from Holland to the duchy of Juelich-Berg. He and his son Lazarus van Geldern were people of importance at Duesseldorf, and his other sons, Simon and Gottschalk, were known and respected beyond the confines of their city. Simon van Geldern was the author of "The Israelites on Mount Horeb," a didactic poem in English, and on his trip to the East he kept a Hebrew journal, which can still be seen. His younger brother Gottschalk was a distinguished physician, and occupied a position of high dignity in the Jewish congregations in the duchies of Juelich and Berg. It is said that he provided for the welfare of his brethren in faith "as a father provides for his children." His only daughter Betty (Peierche) van Geldern, urged by her family and in obedience to the promptings of her own heart, married Samson Heine, and became the mother of the poet. Heine himself has written much about his family,[95] particularly about his mother's brother. Of his paternal grandfather, he knew only what his father had told him, that he was "a little Jew with a great beard." On the whole, his education was strictly religious, but it was tainted with the deplorable inconsistency so frequently found in Jewish homes. Themselves heedless of religious ceremonies, parents exact from their children punctilious observance of minute regulations. Samson Heine was one of the Jews often met with in the beginning of this century who, lacking true culture, caught up some of the encyclopaedist phrases with which the atmosphere of the period was heavy. Heine describes his father's extraordinary buoyancy: "Always azure serenity and fanfares of good humor." The reproach is characteristic which he addressed to his son, when the latter was charged with atheism: "Dear son! Your mother is having you instructed in philosophy by Rector Schallmeier—that is her affair. As for me, I have no love for philosophy; it is nothing but superstition. I am a merchant, and need all my faculties for my business. You may philosophize as much as you please, only, I beg of you, don't tell any one what you think. It would harm my business, were people to discover that my son does not believe in God. Particularly the Jews would stop buying velvets from me, and they are honest folk, and pay promptly. And they are right in clinging to religion. Being your father, therefore older than you, I am more experienced, and you may take my word for it, atheism is a great sin."

Two instances related by Joseph Neunzig, one of his playmates, show how rigorously Harry was compelled to observe religious forms in his paternal home. On a Saturday the children were out walking, when suddenly a fire broke out. The fire extinguishers came clattering up to the burning house, but as the flames were spreading rapidly, all bystanders were ordered to range themselves in line with the firemen. Harry refused point-blank to help: "I may not do it, and I will not, because it is Shabbes to-day." But another time, when it jumped with his wishes, the eight year old boy managed to circumvent the Law. He was playing with some of his schoolmates in front of a neighbor's house. Two luscious bunches of grapes hung over the arbor almost down to the ground. The children noticed them, and with longing in their eyes passed on. Only Harry stood still before the grapes. Suddenly springing on the arbor, he bit one grape after another from the bunch. "Red-head Harry!" the children exclaimed horrified, "what are you doing?" "Nothing wrong," said the little rogue. "We are forbidden to pluck them with our hands, but the law does not say anything about biting and eating." His education was not equable and not methodical. Extremely indulgent towards themselves, the parents were extremely severe in their treatment of their children. So arose the contradictions in the poet's character. He is one of those to whom childhood's religion is a bitter-sweet remembrance unto the end of days. Jewish sympathies were his inalienable heritage, and from this point of view his life must be considered.

The poet's mother was of a different stamp from his father. Like most of the Jews in the Rhenish provinces, his father hailed Napoleon, the first legislator to establish equality between Jews and Christians, as a savior. His mother, on the other hand, was a good German patriot and a woman of culture, who exercised no inconsiderable influence upon the heart and mind of her son. Heine calls her a disciple of Rousseau, and his brother Maximilian tells us that Goethe was her favorite among authors.

The boy was first taught by Rintelsohn at a Jewish school, but his knowledge of Hebrew seems to have been very limited. It is an interesting fact that his first poem, "Belshazzar," which he tells us he wrote at the age of sixteen, was inspired by his childhood's faith and is based upon Jewish history. Towards the end of his life he said to a friend:[96] "Do you know what inspired me? A few words in the Hebrew hymn, Wayhee bechatsi halaila, sung, as you know, on the first two evenings of the Passover. This hymn commemorates all momentous events in the history of the Jews that occurred at midnight; among them the death of the Babylonian tyrant, snatched away at night for desecrating the holy Temple vessels. The quoted words are the refrain of the hymn, which forms part of the Haggada, the curious medley of legends and songs, recited by pious Jews at the Seder." Ay, the Passover celebration, the Seder, remained in the poet's memory till the day of his death. He describes it still later in one of his finest works:[97] "Sweetly sad, joyous, earnest, sportive, and elfishly mysterious is that evening service, and the traditional chant with which the Haggada is recited by the head of the family, the listeners sometimes joining in as a chorus, is thrillingly tender, soothing as a mother's lullaby, yet impetuous and inspiring, so that Jews who long have drifted from the faith of their fathers, and have been pursuing the joys and dignities of the stranger, even they are stirred in their inmost parts when the old, familiar Passover sounds chance to fall upon their ears."

My esteemed friend Rabbi Dr. Frank of Cologne has in his possession a Haggada, admirably illustrated, an heirloom at one time of the Van Geldern family, and it is not improbable that it was out of this artistic book that Heinrich Heine asked the Mah nishtannah, the traditional question of the Seder.

Heine left home very young, and everybody knows that he was apprenticed to a merchant at Frankfort, and that his uncle Solomon's kindness enabled him to devote himself to jurisprudence. But this, of important bearing on our subject, is not a matter of common knowledge: Always and everywhere, especially when he had least intercourse with Jews, Jewish elements appear most prominently in Heine's life.

A merry, light-hearted student, he arrived in Berlin in 1821. A curious spectacle is presented by the Jewish Berlin of the day, dominated by the salons, and the women whose tact and scintillating wit made them the very centre of general society. The traditions of Rahel Levin, Henriette Herz, and other clever women, still held sway. But the state frustrated every attempt to introduce reforms into Judaism. Two great parties opposed each other more implacably than ever, the one clutching the old, the other yearning for the new. Out of the breach, salvation was in time to sprout. In the first quarter of our century, more than three-fourths of the Jewish population of Berlin embraced the ruling faith. This was the new, seditious element with which young Heine was thrown. His interesting personality attracted general notice. All circles welcomed him. The salons did their utmost to make him one of their votaries. Romantic student clubs at Lutter's and Wegener's wine-rooms left nothing untried to lure him to their nocturnal carousals. Even Hegel, the philosopher, evinced marked interest in him. To whose allurements does he yield? Like his great ancestor, he goes to "his brethren languishing in captivity." Some of his young friends, Edward Gans, Leopold Zunz, and Moses Moser, had formed a "Society for Jewish Culture and Science," with Berlin as its centre, and Heinrich Heine became one of its most active members. He taught poor Jewish boys from Posen several hours a week in the school established by the society, and all questions that came up interested him. Joseph Lehmann took pleasure in repeatedly telling how seriously Heine applied himself to a review which he had undertaken to write on the compilation of a German prayer-book for Jewish women.

To the Berlin period belongs his Almansor, a dramatic poem which has suffered the most contradictory criticism. In my opinion, it has usually been misunderstood. Almansor is intelligible only if regarded from a Jewish point of view, and then it is seen to be the hymn of vengeance sung by Judaism oppressed. Substitute the names of a converted Berlin banker and his wife for "Aly" and "Suleima," Berlin under Frederick William III. for "Saragossa," the Berlin Thiergarten for the "Forest," and the satire stands revealed. The following passage is characteristic of the whole poem:[98]

"Go not to Aly's castle! Flee That noxious house where new faith breeds. With honeyed accents there thy heart Is wrenched from out thy bosom's depths, A snake bestowed on thee instead. Hot drops of lead on thy poor head Are poured, and nevermore thy brain From madding pain shall rid itself. Another name thou must assume, That if thy angel warning calls, And calls thee by thy olden name, He call in vain."

Such were Heine's views at that time, and with them he went to Goettingen. There, though Jewish society was entirely lacking, and correspondence with his Berlin friends desultory, his Jewish interests grew stronger than ever. There, inspired by the genius of Jewish history, he composed his Rabbi von Bacharach, the work which, by his own confession, he nursed with unspeakable love, and which, he fondly hoped, would "become an immortal book, a perpetual lamp in the dome of God." Again Jewish conversions, a burning question of the day, were made prominent. Heine's solution is beyond a cavil enlightened. The words are truly remarkable with which Sarah, the beautiful Jewess, declines the services of the gallant knight:[99] "Noble sir! Would you be my knight, then you must meet nations in a combat in which small praise and less honor are to be won. And would you be rash enough to wear my colors, then you must sew yellow wheels upon your mantle, or bind a blue-striped scarf about your breast. For these are my colors, the colors of my house, named Israel, the unhappy house mocked at on the highways and the byways by the children of fortune."

Another illustration of Heine's views at that time of his life, and with those views he one day went to the neighboring town of Heiligenstadt—to be baptized.

Who can sound the depths of a poet's soul? Who can divine what Heine's thoughts, what his hopes were, when he took this step? His letters and confessions of that period must be read to gain an idea of his inner world. On one occasion he wrote to Moser, to whom he laid bare his most intimate thoughts:[100] "Mentioning Japan reminds me to recommend to you Golovnin's 'Journey to Japan.' Perhaps I may send you a poem to-day from the Rabbi, in the writing of which I unfortunately have been interrupted again. I beg that you speak to nobody about this poem, or about what I tell you of my private affairs. A young Spaniard, at heart a Jew, is beguiled to baptism by the arrogance bred of luxury. He sends the translation of an Arabic poem to young Yehuda Abarbanel, with whom he is corresponding. Perhaps he shrinks from directly confessing to his friend an action hardly to be called admirable.... Pray do not think about this."

And the poem? It is this:

TO EDOM

"Each with each has borne, in patience Longer than a thousand year— Thou dost tolerate my breathing, I thy ravings calmly hear.

Sometimes only, in the darkness, Thou didst have sensations odd, And thy paws, caressing, gentle, Crimson turned with my rich blood.

Now our friendship firmer groweth, Daily keeps on growing straight. I myself incline to madness, Soon, in faith, I'll be thy mate."

A few weeks later he writes to Moser in a still more bitter strain: "I know not what to say. Cohen assures me that Gans is preaching Christianity, and trying to convert the children of Israel. If this is conviction, he is a fool; if hypocrisy, a knave. I shall not give up loving him, but I confess that I should have been better pleased to hear that Gans had been stealing silver spoons. That you, dear Moser, share Gans's opinions, I cannot believe, though Cohen assures me of it, and says that you told him so yourself. I should be sorry, if my own baptism were to strike you more favorably. I give you my word of honor—if our laws allowed stealing silver spoons, I should not have been baptized." Again he writes mournfully: "As, according to Solon, no man may be called happy, so none should be called honest, before his death. I am glad that David Friedlaender and Bendavid are old, and will soon die. Then we shall be certain of them, and the reproach of having had not a single immaculate representative cannot be attached to our time. Pardon my ill humor. It is directed mainly against myself."

"Upon how true a basis the myth of the wandering Jew rests!" he says in another letter. "In the lonely wooded valley, the mother tells her children the grewsome tale. Terror-stricken the little ones cower close to the hearth. It is night ... the postilion blows his horn ... Jew traders are journeying to the fair at Leipsic. We, the heroes of the legend, are not aware of our part in it. The white beard, whose tips time has rejuvenated, no barber can remove." In those days he wrote the following poem, published posthumously:[101]

TO AN APOSTATE

"Out upon youth's holy flame! Oh! how quickly it burns low! Now, thy heated blood grown tame, Thou agreest to love thy foe!

And thou meekly grovell'st low At the cross which thou didst spurn; Which not many weeks ago, Thou didst wish to crush and burn.

Fie! that comes from books untold— There are Schlegel, Haller, Burke— Yesterday a hero bold, Thou to-day dost scoundrel's work."

The usual explanation of Heine's formal adoption of Christianity is that he wished to obtain a government position in Prussia, and make himself independent of his rich uncle. As no other offers itself, we are forced to accept it as correct. He was fated to recognize speedily that he had gained nothing by baptism. A few weeks after settling in Hamburg he wrote: "I repent me of having been baptized. I cannot see that I have bettered my position. On the contrary, I have had nothing but disappointment and bad luck." Despite his baptism, his enemies called him "the Jew," and at heart he never did become a Christian.

At Hamburg, in those days, Heine was repeatedly drawn into the conflict between reform and orthodoxy, between the Temple and the synagogue. His uncle Solomon Heine was a warm supporter of the Temple, but Heine, with characteristic inconsistency, admired the old rigorous rabbinical system more than the modern reform movement, which often called forth his ridicule. Yet, at bottom, his interest in the latter was strong, as it continued to be also in the Berlin educational society, and its "Journal for the Science of Judaism," of which, however, only three numbers were issued. He once wrote from Hamburg to his friend Moser: "Last Saturday I was at the Temple, and had the pleasure with my own ears to hear Dr. Salomon rail against baptized Jews, and insinuate that they are tempted to become faithless to the religion of their fathers only by the hope of preferment. I assure you, the sermon was good, and some day I intend to call upon the man. Cohen is doing the generous thing by me. I take my Shabbes dinner with him; he heaps fiery Kugel upon my head, and contritely I eat the sacred national dish, which has done more for the preservation of Judaism than all three numbers of the Journal. To be sure, it has had a better sale. If I had time, I would write a pretty little Jewish letter to Mrs. Zunz. I am getting to be a thoroughbred Christian; I am sponging on the rich Jews."

They who find nothing but jest in this letter, do not understand Heine. A bitter strain of disgust, of unsparing self-denunciation, runs through it—the feelings that dictate the jests and accusations of his Reisebilder. This was the period of Heine's best creations: for as such his "Book of Songs," Buch der Lieder, and his Reisebilder must be considered. With a sudden bound he leapt into greatness and popularity.

The reader may ask me to point out in these works the features to be taken as the expression of the genius of the Jewish race. To understand our poet, we must keep in mind that Heinrich Heine was a Jew born in the days of romanticism in a town on the Rhine. His intellect and his sensuousness, of Jewish origin, were wedded with Rhenish fancy and blitheness, and over these qualities the pale moonshine of romanticism shed its glamour.

The most noteworthy characteristic of his writings, prose and verse, is his extraordinary subjectivity, pushing the poet's ego into the foreground. With light, graceful touch, he demonstrates the possibility of unrestrained self-expression in an artistic guise. The boldness and energy with which "he gave voice to his hidden self" were so novel, so surprising, that his melodies at once awoke an echo. This subjectivity is his Jewish birthright. It is Israel's ingrained combativeness, for more than a thousand years the genius of its literature, which throughout reveals a predilection for abrupt contrasts, and is studded with unmistakable expressions of strong individuality. By virtue of his subjectivity, which never permits him to surrender himself unconditionally, the Jew establishes a connection between his ego and whatever subject he treats of. "He does not sink his own identity, and lose himself in the depths of the cosmos, nor roam hither and thither in the limitless space of the world of thought. He dives down to search for pearls at the bottom of the sea, or rises aloft to gain a bird's-eye view of the whole. The world encloses him as the works of a clock are held in a case. His ego is the hammer, and there is no sound unless, swinging rhythmically, itself touches the sides, now softly, now boldly." Not content to yield to an authority which would suppress his freedom of action, he traverses the world, and compels it to promote the development of his energetic nature. To these peculiarities of his race Heine fell heir—to the generous traits growing out of marked individuality, its grooves deepened by a thousand years of martyrdom, as well as to the petty faults following in the wake of excessive self-consciousness; which have furnished adversaries of the Jews with texts and weapons.

This subjectivity, traceable in his language and in his ancient literature, it is that unfits the Jew for objective, philosophic investigation. It is, moreover, responsible for that energetic self-assertiveness for which the Aramaean language has coined the word chutspa, only partially rendered by arrogance. Possibly it is the root of another quality which Heine owes to his Jewish extraction—his wit Heine's scintillations are composed of a number of elements—of English humor, French sparkle, German irony, and Jewish wit, all of which, saving the last, have been analyzed by the critics. Proneness to censure, to criticism, and discussion, is the concomitant of keen intellect given to scrutiny and analysis. From the buoyancy of the Jewish disposition, and out of the force of Jewish subjectivity, arose Jewish wit, whose first manifestations can be traced in the Talmud and the Midrash. Its appeals are directed to both fancy and heart. It delights in antithesis, and, as was said above, is intimately connected with Jewish subjectivity. Its distinguishing characteristic is the desire to have its superiority acknowledged without wounding the feelings of the sensitive, and an explanation of its peculiarity can be found in the sad fate of the Jews. The heroes of Shakespere's tragedies are full of irony. Frenzy at its maddest pitch breaks out into merry witticisms and scornful laughter. So it was with the Jews. The waves of oppression, forever dashing over them, strung their nerves to the point of reaction. The world was closed to them in hostility. There was nothing for them to do but laugh—laugh with forced merriment from behind prison bars, and out of the depths of their heartrending resignation. Complaints it was possible to suppress, but no one could forbid their laughter, ghastly though it was. M. G. Saphir, one of the best exponents of Jewish wit, justly said: "The Jews seized the weapon of wit, since they were interdicted the use of every other sort of weapon." Whatever humdrum life during the middle ages offered them, had to submit to the scalpel of their wit.

As a rule, Jewish wit springs from a lively appreciation of what is ingenious. A serious beginning suddenly and unexpectedly takes a merry, jocose turn, producing in Heine's elegiac passages the discordant endings so shocking to sensitive natures. But it is an injustice to the poet to attribute these rapid transitions to an artist's vain fancy. His satire is directed against the ideals of his generation, not against the ideal. Harsh, discordant notes do not express the poet's real disposition. They are exaggerated, romantic feeling, for which he himself, led by an instinctively pure conception of the good and the beautiful, which is opposed alike to sickly sentimentality and jarring dissonance, sought the outlet of irony.

Heine's humor, as I intimated above, springs from his recognition of the tragedy of life. It is an expression of the irreconcilable difference between the real and the ideal, of the perception that the world, despite its grandeur and its beauty, is a world of folly and contradictions; that whatever exists and is formed, bears within itself the germ of death and corruption; that the Lord of all creation himself is but the shuttlecock of irresistible, absolute force, compelling the unconditional surrender of subject and object.

Humor, then, grows out of the contemplation of the tragedy of life. But it does not stop there. If the world is so pitiful, so fragile, it is not worth a tear, not worth hatred, or contempt. The only sensible course is to accept it as it is, as a nothing, an absolute contradiction, calling forth ridicule. At this point, a sense of tragedy is transformed into demoniac glee. No more is this a permanent state. The humorist is too impulsive to accept it as final. Moreover, he feels that with the world he has annihilated himself. In the phantom realm into which he has turned the world, his laughter reverberates with ghostlike hollowness. Recognizing that the world meant more to him than he was willing to admit, and that apart from it he has no being, he again yields to it, and embraces it with increased passion and ardor. But scarcely has the return been effected, scarcely has he begun to realize the beauties and perfections of the world, when sadness, suffering, pain, and torture, obtrude themselves, and the old overwhelming sense of life's tragedy takes possession of him. This train of thought, plainly discernible in Heine's poems, he also owes to his descent. A mind given to such speculations naturally seeks poetic solace in Weltschmerz, which, as everybody knows, is still another heirloom of his race.

These are the most important characteristics, some admirable, some reprehensible, which Heine has derived from his race, and they are the very ones that raised opponents against him, one of the most interesting and prominent among them being the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. His two opinions on Heine, expressed at almost the same time, are typical of the antagonism aroused by the poet. In his book, "The World as Will and Idea,"[102] he writes: "Heine is a true humorist in his Romanzero. Back of all his quips and gibes lies deep seriousness, ashamed to speak out frankly." At the same time he says in his journal, published posthumously: "Although a buffoon, Heine has genius, and the distinguishing mark of genius, ingenuousness. On close examination, however, his ingenuousness turns out to have its root in Jewish shamelessness; for he, too, belongs to the nation of which Riemer says that it knows neither shame nor grief."

The contradiction between the two judgments is too obvious to need explanation; it is an interesting illustration of the common experience that critics go astray when dealing with Heine.

II

When, as Heine puts it, "a great hand solicitously beckoned," he left his German fatherland in his prime, and went to Paris. In its sociable atmosphere, he felt more comfortable, more free, than in his own home, where the Jew, the author, the liberal, had encountered only prejudices. The removal to Paris was an inauspicious change for the poet, and that he remained there until his end was still less calculated to redound to his good fortune. He gave much to France, and Paris did little during his life to pay off the debt. The charm exercised upon every stranger by Babylon on the Seine, wrought havoc in his character and his work, and gives us the sole criterion for the rest of his days. Yet, despite his devotion to Paris, home-sickness, yearning for Germany, was henceforth the dominant note of his works. At that time Heine considered Judaism "a long lost cause." Of the God of Judaism, the philosophical demonstrations of Hegel and his disciples had robbed him; his knowledge of doctrinal Judaism was a minimum; and his keen race-feeling, his historical instinct, was forced into the background by other sympathies and antipathies. He was at that time harping upon the long cherished idea that men can be divided into Hellenists and Nazarenes. Himself, for instance, he looked upon as a well-fed Hellenist, while Boerne was a Nazarene, an ascetic. It is interesting, and bears upon our subject, that most of the verdicts, views, and witticisms which Heine fathers upon Boerne in the famous imaginary conversation in the Frankfort Judengasse, might have been uttered by Heine himself. In fact, many of them are repeated, partly in the same or in similar words, in the jottings found after his death.

This conversation is represented as having taken place during the Feast of Chanukka. Heine who, as said above, took pleasure at that time in impersonating a Hellenist, gets Boerne to explain to him that this feast was instituted to commemorate the victory of the valiant Maccabees over the king of Syria. After expatiating on the heroism of the Maccabees, and the cowardice of modern Jews, Boerne says:[103]

"Baptism is the order of the day among the wealthy Jews. The evangel vainly announced to the poor of Judaea now flourishes among the rich. Its acceptance is self-deception, if not a lie, and as hypocritical Christianity contrasts sharply with the old Adam, who will crop out, these people lay themselves open to unsparing ridicule.—In the streets of Berlin I saw former daughters of Israel wear crosses about their necks longer than their noses, reaching to their very waists. They carried evangelical prayer books, and were discussing the magnificent sermon just heard at Trinity church. One asked the other where she had gone to communion, and all the while their breath smelt. Still more disgusting was the sight of dirty, bearded, malodorous Polish Jews, hailing from Polish sewers, saved for heaven by the Berlin Society for the Conversion of Jews, and in turn preaching Christianity in their slovenly jargon. Such Polish vermin should certainly be baptized with cologne instead of ordinary water."

This is to be taken as an expression of Heine's own feelings, which come out plainly, when, "persistently loyal to Jewish customs," he eats, "with good appetite, yes, with enthusiasm, with devotion, with conviction," Shalet, the famous Jewish dish, about which he says: "This dish is delicious, and it is a subject for painful regret that the Church, indebted to Judaism for so much that is good, has failed to introduce Shalet. This should be her object in the future. If ever she falls on evil times, if ever her most sacred symbols lose their virtue, then the Church will resort to Shalet, and the faithless peoples will crowd into her arms with renewed appetite. At all events the Jews will then join the Church from conviction, for it is clear that it is only Shalet that keeps them in the old covenant. Boerne assures me that renegades who have accepted the new dispensation feel a sort of home-sickness for the synagogue when they but smell Shalet, so that Shalet may be called the Jewish ranz des vaches."

Heine forgot that in another place he had uttered this witticism in his own name. He long continued to take peculiar pleasure in his dogmatic division of humanity into two classes, the lean and the fat, or rather, the class that continually gets thinner, and the class which, beginning with modest dimensions, gradually attains to corpulency. Only too soon the poet was made to understand the radical falseness of his definition. A cold February morning of 1848 brought him a realizing sense of his fatal mistake. Sick and weary, the poet was taking his last walk on the boulevards, while the mob of the revolution surged in the streets of Paris. Half blind, half paralyzed, leaning heavily on his cane, he sought to extricate himself from the clamorous crowd, and finally found refuge in the Louvre, almost empty during the days of excitement. With difficulty he dragged himself to the hall of the gods and goddesses of antiquity, and suddenly came face to face with the ideal of beauty, the smiling, witching Venus of Milo, whose charms have defied time and mutilation. Surprised, moved, almost terrified, he reeled to a chair, tears, hot and bitter, coursing down his cheeks. A smile was hovering on the beautiful lips of the goddess, parted as if by living breath, and at her feet a luckless victim was writhing. A single moment revealed a world of misery. Driven by a consciousness of his fate, Heine wrote in his "Confessions": "In May of last year I was forced to take to my bed, and since then I have not risen. I confess frankly that meanwhile a great change has taken place in me. I no longer am a fat Hellenist, the freest man since Goethe, a jolly, somewhat corpulent Hellenist, with a contemptuous smile for lean Jews—I am only a poor Jew, sick unto death, a picture of gaunt misery, an unhappy being."

This startling change was coincident with the first symptoms of his disease, and kept pace with it. The pent-up forces of faith pressed to his bedside; religious conversations, readings from the Bible, reminiscences of his youth, of his Jewish friends, filled his time almost entirely. Alfred Meissner has culled many interesting data from his conversations with the poet. For instance, on one occasion Heine breaks out with:[104]

"Queer people this! Downtrodden for thousands of years, weeping always, suffering always, abandoned always by its God, yet clinging to Him tenaciously, loyally, as no other under the sun. Oh, if martyrdom, patience, and faith in despite of trial, can confer a patent of nobility, then this people is noble beyond many another.—It would have been absurd and petty, if, as people accuse me, I had been ashamed of being a Jew. Yet it were equally ludicrous for me to call myself a Jew.—As I instinctively hold up to unending scorn whatever is evil, timeworn, absurd, false, and ludicrous, so my nature leads me to appreciate the sublime, to admire what is great, and to extol every living force." Heine had spoken so much with deep earnestness. Jestingly he added: "Dear friend, if little Weill should visit us, you shall have another evidence of my reverence for hoary Mosaism. Weill formerly was precentor at the synagogue. He has a ringing tenor, and chants Judah's desert songs according to the old traditions, ranging from the simple monotone to the exuberance of Old Testament cadences. My wife, who has not the slightest suspicion that I am a Jew, is not a little astonished by this peculiar musical wail, this trilling and cadencing. When Weill sang for the first time, Minka, the poodle, crawled into hiding under the sofa, and Cocotte, the polly, made an attempt to throttle himself between the bars of his cage. 'M. Weill, M. Weill!' Mathilde cried terror-stricken, 'pray do not carry the joke too far.' But Weill continued, and the dear girl turned to me, and asked imploringly: 'Henri, pray tell me what sort of songs these are.' 'They are our German folk songs,' said I, and I have obstinately stuck to that explanation."

Meissner reports an amusing conversation with Madame Mathilde about the friends of the family, whom the former by their peculiarities recognized as Jews. "What!" cried Mathilde, "Jews? They are Jews?" "Of course, Alexander Weill is a Jew, he told me so himself;—why he was going to be a rabbi." "But the rest, all the rest? For instance, there is Abeles, the name sounds so thoroughly German." "Rather say it sounds Greek," answered Meissner. "Yet I venture to insist that our friend Abeles has as little German as Greek blood in his veins." "Very well! But Jeiteles—Kalisch—Bamberg—Are they, too.... O no, you are mistaken, not one is a Jew," cried Mathilde. "You will never make me believe that. Presently you will make out Cohn to be a Jew. But Cohn is related to Heine, and Heine is a Protestant." So Meissner found out that Heine had never told his wife anything about his descent. He gravely answered: "You are right. With regard to Cohn I was of course mistaken. Cohn is certainly not a Jew."

These are mere jests. In point of fact, his friends' reports on the religious attitude of the Heine of that period are of the utmost interest. He once said to Ludwig Kalisch, who had told him that the world was all agog over his conversion:[105] "I do not make a secret of my Jewish allegiance, to which I have not returned, because I never abjured it. I was not baptized from aversion to Judaism, and my professions of atheism were never serious. My former friends, the Hegelians, have turned out scamps. Human misery is too great for men to do without faith."

The completest picture of the transformation, truer than any given in letters, reports, or reminiscences, is in his last two productions, the Romanzero and the "Confessions." There can be no more explicit description of the poet's conversion than is contained in these "confessions." During his sickness he sought a palliative for his pains—in the Bible. With a melancholy smile his mind reverted to the memories of his youth, to the heroism which is the underlying principle of Judaism. The Psalmist's consolations, the elevating principles laid down in the Pentateuch, exerted a powerful attraction upon him, and filled his soul with exalted thoughts, shaped into words in the "Confessions":[106] "Formerly I felt little affection for Moses, probably because the Hellenic spirit was dominant within me, and I could not pardon the Jewish lawgiver for his intolerance of images, and every sort of plastic representation. I failed to see that despite his hostile attitude to art, Moses was himself a great artist, gifted with the true artist's spirit. Only in him, as in his Egyptian neighbors, the artistic instinct was exercised solely upon the colossal and the indestructible. But unlike the Egyptians he did not shape his works of art out of brick or granite. His pyramids were built of men, his obelisks hewn out of human material. A feeble race of shepherds he transformed into a people bidding defiance to the centuries—a great, eternal, holy people, God's people, an exemplar to all other peoples, the prototype of mankind: he created Israel. With greater justice than the Roman poet could this artist, the son of Amram and Jochebed the midwife, boast of having erected a monument more enduring than brass.

As for the artist, so I lacked reverence for his work, the Jews, doubtless on account of my Greek predilections, antagonistic to Judaic asceticism. My love for Hellas has since declined. Now I understand that the Greeks were only beautiful youths, while the Jews have always been men, powerful, inflexible men, not only in early times, to-day, too, in spite of eighteen hundred years of persecution and misery. I have learnt to appreciate them, and were pride of birth not absurd in a champion of the revolution and its democratic principles, the writer of these leaflets would boast that his ancestors belonged to the noble house of Israel, that he is a descendant of those martyrs to whom the world owes God and morality, and who have fought and bled on every battlefield of thought."

In view of such avowals, Heine's return to Judaism is an indubitable fact, and when one of his friends anxiously inquired about his relation to God, he could well answer with a smile: Dieu me pardonnera; c'est son metier. In those days Heine made his will, his true, genuine will, to have been the first to publish which the present writer will always consider the distinction of his life. The introduction reads: "I die in the belief in one God, Creator of heaven and earth, whose mercy I supplicate in behalf of my immortal soul. I regret that in my writings I sometimes spoke of sacred things with levity, due not so much to my own inclination, as to the spirit of my age. If unwittingly I have offended against good usage and morality, which constitute the true essence of all monotheistic religions, may God and men forgive me."

With this confession on his lips Heine passed away, dying in the thick of the fight, his very bier haunted by the spirits of antagonism and contradiction....

"Greek joy in life, belief in God of Jew, And twining in and out like arabesques, Ivy tendrils gently clasp the two."

In Heine's character, certainly, there were sharp contrasts. Now we behold him a Jew, now a Christian, now a Hellenist, now a romanticist; to-day laughing, to-morrow weeping, to-day the prophet of the modern era, to-morrow the champion of tradition. Who knows the man? Yet who that steps within the charmed circle of his life can resist the temptation to grapple with the enigma?

One of the best known of his poems is the plaint:

"Mass for me will not be chanted, Kadosh not be said, Naught be sung, and naught recited, Round my dying bed."

The poet's prophecy has not come true. As this tribute has in spirit been laid upon his grave, so always thousands will devote kindly thought to him, recalling in gentleness how he struggled and suffered, wrestled and aspired; how, at the dawn of the new day, enthusiastically proclaimed by him, his spirit fled aloft to regions where doubts are set at rest, hopes fulfilled, and visions made reality.



THE MUSIC OF THE SYNAGOGUE[107]

Ladies and Gentlemen:—Let the emotions aroused by the notes of the great masters, now dying away upon the air, continue to reverberate in your souls. More forcibly and more eloquently than my weak words, they express the thoughts and the feelings appropriate to this solemn occasion.

A festival like ours has rarely been celebrated in Israel. For nearly two thousand years the muse of Jewish melody was silent; during the whole of that period, a new chord was but seldom won from the unused lyre. The Talmud[108] has a quaint tale on the subject: Higros the Levite living at the time of the decadence of Israel's nationality, was the last skilled musician, and he refused to teach his art. When he sang his exquisite melodies, touching his mouth with his thumb, and striking the strings with his fingers, it is said that his priestly mates, transported by the magic power of his art, fell prostrate, and wept. Under the Oriental trappings of this tale is concealed regretful anguish over the decay of old Hebrew song. The altar at Jerusalem was demolished, and the songs of Zion, erst sung by the Levitical choirs under the leadership of the Korachides, were heard no longer. The silence was unbroken, until, in our day, a band of gifted men disengaged the old harps from the willows, and once more lured the ancient melodies from their quavering strings.

Towering head and shoulders above most of the group of restorers is he in whose honor we are assembled, to whom we bring greeting and congratulation. To you, then, Herr Lewandowski, I address myself to offer you the deep-felt gratitude and the cordial wishes of your friends, of the Berlin community, and, I may add, of the whole of Israel. You were appointed for large tasks—large tasks have you successfully performed. At a time when Judaism was at a low ebb, only scarcely discernible indications promising a brighter future, Providence sent you to occupy a guide's position in the most important, the largest, and the most intelligent Jewish community of Germany. For fifty years your zeal, your diligence, your faithfulness, your devotion, your affectionate reverence for our past, and your exalted gifts, have graced the office. Were testimony unto your gifts and character needed, it would be given by this day's celebration, proving, as it does, that your brethren have understood the underlying thought of your activities, have grasped their bearing upon Jewish development, and have appreciated their influence.

You have remodelled the divine service of the Jewish synagogue, superadding elements of devotion and sacredness. Under your touch old lays have clothed themselves with a modern garb—a new rhythm vibrates through our historic melodies, keener strength in the familiar words, heightened dignity in the cherished songs. Two generations and all parts of the world have hearkened to your harmonies, responding to them with tears of joy or sorrow, with feelings stirred from the recesses of the heart. To your music have listened entranced the boy and the girl on the day of declaring their allegiance to the covenant of the fathers; the youth and the maiden in life's most solemn hour; men and women in all the sacred moments of the year, on days of mourning and of festivity.

A quarter of a century ago, when you celebrated the end of twenty-five years of useful work, a better man stood here, and spoke to you. Leopold Zunz on that occasion said to you: "Old thoughts have been transformed by you into modern emotions, and long stored words seasoned with your melodies have made delicious food."

This is your share in the revival of Jewish poesy, and what you have resuscitated, and remodelled, and re-created, will endure, echoing and re-echoing through all the lands. In you Higros the Levite has been restored to us. But your melodies will never sink into oblivious silence. They have been carried by an honorable body of disciples to distant lands, beyond the ocean, to communities in the remote countries of civilization. Thus they have become the perpetual inheritance of the congregation of Jacob, the people that has ever loved and wooed music, only direst distress succeeding in flinging the pall of silence over song and melody.

Holy Writ places the origin of music in the primitive days of man, tersely pointing out, at the same time, music's conciliatory charms: it is the descendant of Cain, the fratricide, a son of Lemech, the slayer of a man to his own wounding, who is said to be the "father of all such as play on the harp and guitar" (Kinnor and Ugab). Another of Lemech's sons was the first artificer in every article of copper and iron, the inventor of weapons of war, as the former was the inventor of stringed instruments. Both used brass, the one to sing, the other to fight. So music sprang from sorrow and combat. Song and roundelay, timbrels and harp, accompanied our forefathers on their wanderings, and preceded the armed men into battle. So, too, the returning victor was greeted, and in the Temple on Moriah's crest, joyful songs of gratitude extolled the grace of the Lord. From the harp issued the psalm dedicated to the glory of God—love of art gave rise to the psalter, a song-book for the nations, and its author David may be called the founder of the national and Temple music of the ancient Hebrews. With his song, he banished the evil spirit from Saul's soul; with his skill on the psaltery, he defeated his enemies, and he led the jubilant chorus in the Holy City singing to the honor and glory of the Most High.

Compare the Hebrew and the Hellenic music of ancient times: Orpheus with his music charms wild beasts; David's subdues demons. By means of Amphion's lyre, living walls raise themselves; Israel's cornets make level the ramparts of Jericho. Arion's melodies lure dolphins from the sea; Hebrew music infuses into the prophet's disciples the spirit of the Lord. These are the wondrous effects of music in Israel and in Hellas, the foremost representatives of ancient civilization. Had the one united with the other, what celestial harmonies might have resulted! But later, in the time of Macedonian imperialism, when Alexandria and Jerusalem met, the one stood for enervated paganism, the other for a Judaism of compromise, and a union of such tones produces no harmonious chords.

But little is known of the ancient Hebrew music of the Temple, of the singers, the songs, the melodies, and the instruments. The Hebrews had songs and instrumental music on all festive, solemn occasions, particularly during the divine service. At their national celebrations, in their homes, at their diversions, even on their journeys and their pilgrimages to the sanctuary, their hymns were at once religious, patriotic, and social.[109] They had the viol and the cithara, flutes, cymbals, and castanets, and, if our authorities interpret correctly, an organ (magrepha), whose volume of sound surpassed description. When, on the Day of Atonement, its strains pealed through the chambers of the Temple, they were heard in the whole of Jerusalem, and all the people bowed in humble adoration before the Lord of hosts. The old music ceased with the overthrow of the Jewish state. The Levites hung their harps on the willows of Babylon's streams, and every entreaty for the "words of song" was met by the reproachful inquiry: "How should we sing the song of the Lord on the soil of the stranger?" Higros the Levite was the last of Israelitish tone-artists.

Israel set out on his fateful wanderings, his unparalleled pilgrimage, through the lands and the centuries, along an endless, thorny path, drenched with blood, watered with tears, across nations and thrones, lonely, terrible, sublime with the stern sublimity of tragic scenes. They are not the sights and experiences to inspire joyous songs—melody is muffled by terror. Only lamentation finds voice, an endless, oppressive, anxious wail, sounding adown, through two thousand years, like a long-drawn sigh, reverberating in far-reaching echoes: "How long, O Lord, how long!" and "When shall a redeemer arise for this people?" These elegiac refrains Israel never wearies of repeating on all his journeyings. Occasionally a fitful gleam of sunlight glides into the crowded Jewish quarters, and at once a more joyous note is heard, rising triumphant above the doleful plaint, a note which asserts itself exultingly on the celebration in memory of the Maccabean heroes, on the days of Purim, at wedding banquets, at the love-feasts of the pious brotherhood. This fusion of melancholy and of rejoicing is the keynote of mediaeval Jewish music growing out of the grotesque contrasts of Jewish history. Yet, despite its romantic woe, it is informed with the spirit of a remote past, making it the legitimate offspring of ancient Hebrew music, whose characteristics, to be sure, we arrive at only by guesswork. Of that mediaeval music of ours, the poet's words are true: "It rejoices so pathetically, it laments so joyfully."

Whoever has heard, will never forget Israel's melodies, breaking forth into rejoicing, then cast down with sadness: flinging out their notes to the skies, then sinking into an abyss of grief: now elated, now oppressed; now holding out hope, now moaning forth sorrow and pain. They convey the whole of Judah's history—his glorious past, his mournful present, his exalted future promised by God. As their tones flood our soul, a succession of visions passes before our mental view: the Temple in all its unexampled splendor, the exultant chorus of Levites, the priests discharging their holy office, the venerable forms of the patriarchs, the lawgiver-guide of the people, prophets with uplifted finger of warning, worthy rabbis, pale-faced martyrs of the middle ages; but the melodies conjuring before our minds all these shadowy figures have but one burden: "How should we sing the song of the Lord on the soil of the stranger?"

That is the ever-recurring motif of the Jewish music of the middle ages. But the blending of widely different emotions is not favorable in the creation of melody. Secular occurrences set their seal upon religious music, of which some have so high a conception as to call it one of the seven liberal arts, or even to extol it beyond poetry. Jacob Levi of Mayence (Maharil), living at the beginning of the fifteenth century, is considered the founder of German synagogue music, but his productions remained barren of poetic and devotional results. He drew his best subjects from alien sources. At the time of the Italian Renaissance, music had so firmly established itself in the appreciation of the people that a preacher, Judah Muscato, devoted the first of his celebrated sermons to music, assigning to it a high mission among the arts. He interpreted the legend of David's AEolian harp as a beautiful allegory. Basing his explanation on a verse in the Psalms, he showed that it symbolizes a spiritual experience of the royal bard. Another writer, Abraham ben David Portaleone, found the times still riper; he could venture to write a theory of music, as taught him by his teachers, Samuel Arkevolti and Menahem Lonsano, both of whom had strongly opposed the use of certain secular melodies then current in Italy, Germany, France, and Turkey for religious songs. Among Jewish musicians in the latter centuries of the middle ages, the most prominent was Solomon Rossi. He, too, failed to exercise influence on the shaping of Jewish music, which more and more delighted in grotesqueness and aberrations from good taste. The origin of synagogue melodies was attributed to remoter and remoter periods; the most soulful hymns were adapted to frivolous airs. Later still, at a time when German music had risen to its zenith, when Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven flourished, the Jewish strolling musician Klesmer, a mendicant in the world of song as in the world of finance, was wandering through the provinces with his two mates.

Suddenly a new era dawned for Israel, too. The sun of humanity sent a few of its rays into the squalid Ghetto. Its walls fell before the trumpet blast of deliverance. On all sides sounded the cry for liberty. The brotherhood of man, embracing all, did not exclude storm-baptized Israel. The old synagogue had to keep pace with modern demands, and was arrayed in a new garb. Among those who designed and fashioned the new garment, he is prominent in whose honor we have met to-day.

From our short journey through the centuries of music, we have returned to him who has succeeded in the great work of restoring to its honorable place the music of the synagogue, sorely missed, ardently longed for, and bringing back to us old songs in a new guise. An old song and a new melody! The old song of abiding love, loyalty, and resignation to the will of God! His motto was the beautiful verse: "My strength and my song is the Lord"; and his unchanging refrain, the jubilant exclamation: "Blessed be thou, fair Musica!" A wise man once said: "Hold in high honor our Lady of Music!" The wise man was Martin Luther—another instance this of the conciliatory power of music, standing high above the barriers raised by religious differences. It is worthy of mention, on this occasion, that at the four hundredth anniversary celebration in honor of Martin Luther, in the Sebaldus church at Nuremberg, the most Protestant of the cities of Germany, called by Luther himself "the eye of God," a psalm of David was sung to music composed by our guest of the day.

"Hold in high honor our Lady of Music!" We will be admonished by the behest, and give honor to the artist by whose fostering care the music of the synagogue enjoys a new lease of life; who, with pious zeal, has collected our dear old melodies, and has sung them to us with all the ardor and power with which God in His kindness endowed him.

"The sculptor must simulate life, of the poet I demand intelligence; The soul can be expressed only by Polyhymnia!"

An orphan, song wandered hither and thither through the world, met, after many days, by the musician, who compassionately adopted it, and clothed it with his melodies. On the pinions of music, it now soars whithersoever it listeth, bringing joy and blessing wherever it alights. "The old song, the new melody!" Hark! through the silence of the night in this solemn moment, one of those old songs, clad by our maestro in a new melody, falls upon our ears: "I remember unto thee the kindness of thy youth, the love of thy espousals, thy going after me in the wilderness, through a land that is not sown!"

Hearken! Can we not distinguish in its notes, as they fill our ears, the presage of a music of the future, of love and good-will? We seem to hear the rustle of the young leaves of a new spring, the resurrection foretold thousands of years agone by our poets and prophets. We see slowly dawning that great day on which mankind, awakened from the fitful sleep of error and delusion, will unite in the profession of the creed of brotherly love, and Israel's song will be mankind's song, myriads of voices in unison sending aloft to the skies the psalm of praise: Hallelujah, Hallelujah!



INDEX

Aaron, medical writer, 79

Abbahu, Haggadist, 21

Abbayu, rabbi, quoted, 232-233

Abina, rabbi, 19

Abitur, poet, 24

Aboab, Isaac, writer, 45, 130

Aboab, Samuel, Bible scholar, 45

Abrabanel, Isaac, scholar and statesman, 42, 99

Abrabanel, Judah, 42, 95

Abraham in Africa, 255

Abraham Bedersi, poet, 171

Abraham ben Chiya, scientist, 83, 93

Abraham ben David Portaleone, musician, 376

Abraham de Balmes, physician, 95

Abraham dei Mansi, Talmudist, 116

Abraham ibn Daud, philosopher, 35

Abraham ibn Ezra, exegete, 36 mathematician, 83

Abraham ibn Sahl, poet, 34, 88

Abraham Judaeus. See Abraham ibn Ezra

Abraham of Sarteano, poet, 224

Abraham Portaleone, archaeolegist, 45, 97

Abraham Powdermaker, legend of, 285-286

Abt and Mendelssohn, 314

Abyssinia, the Ten Tribes in, 262-263

Ackermann, Rachel, novelist, 119

Acosta, Uriel, alluded to, 100

Acta Esther et Achashverosh, drama, 244

Actors, Jewish, 232, 246, 247-248

Adia, poet, 24

Adiabene, Jews settle in, 251

AEsop's fables translated into Hebrew, 34

"A few words to the Jews by one of themselves," by Charlotte Montefiore, 133

Afghanistan, the Ten Tribes in, 259

Africa, interest in, 249-250 in the Old Testament, 255 the Talmud on, 254 the Ten Tribes in, 262

Agau spoken by the Falashas, 265

Aguilar, Grace, author, 134-137 testimonial to, 136-137

"Ahasverus," farce, 244

Ahaz, king, alluded to, 250

Akiba ben Joseph, rabbi, 19, 58 quoted, 253, 256

Albert of Prussia, alluded to, 288

Albertus Magnus and Maimonides, 156, 164 philosopher, 82 proscribes the Talmud, 85

Albo, Joseph, philosopher, 42

Al-Chazari, by Yehuda Halevi, 31 commentary on, 298

Alemanno, Jochanan, Kabbalist, 95

Alessandro Farnese, alluded to, 98

Alexander III, pope, and Jewish diplomats, 99

Alexander the Great, 229, 254

Alexandria, centre of Jewish life, 17 philosophy in, 75

Alfonsine Tables compiled, 92

Alfonso V of Portugal and Isaac Abrabanel, 99

Alfonso X, of Castile, patron of Jewish scholars, 92, 93

Alfonso XI, of Castile, 170, 260

Alityros, actor, 232

Alkabez, Solomon, poet, 43

Alliance Israelite Universelle, and the Falashas, 264

"Almagest" by Ptolemy translated, 79 read by Maimonides, 159

Almansor by Heine, 347

Almohades and Maimonides, 148

Altweiberdeutsch. See Judendeutsch

Amatus Lusitanus, physician, 42, 97

Amharic spoken by the Falashas, 265

Amoraim, Speakers, 58

Amos, prophet, alluded to, 251

Amsterdam, Marrano centre, 128-129

Anahuac and the Ten Tribes, 259

Anatoli. See Jacob ben Abba-Mari ben Anatoli

Anatomy in the Talmud, 77

Anna, Rashi's granddaughter, 118

Anti-Maimunists, 39-40

Antiochus Epiphanes, alluded to, 193

Antonio di Montoro, troubadour, 97, 180-181

Antonio dos Reys, on Isabella Correa, 129

Antonio Enriquez di Gomez. See Enriquez, Antonio.

Antonio Jose de Silva, dramatist, 100, 236-237

Aquinas, Thomas, philosopher, 82 and Maimonides, 156, 164 under Gabirol's influence, 94 works of, translated, 86

Arabia, Jews settle in, 250-251 the Ten Tribes in, 256-257

Arabs influence Jews, 80 relation of, to Jews, 22

Argens, d', and Mendelssohn, 303

Aristeas, Neoplatonist, 17

Aristobulus, Aristotelian, 17

Aristotle, alluded to, 250 and Maimonides, 156 interpreted by Jews, 85 quoted, 249

Arkevolti, Samuel, grammarian, 376

Armenia, the Ten Tribes in, 259

Arnstein, Benedict David, dramatist, 245

Art among Jews, 102

"Art of Carving and Serving at Princely Boards, The" translated, 91

Arthurian legends in Hebrew, 87

Ascarelli, Deborah, poetess, 44, 124

Asher ben Yehuda, hero of a romance, 34, 213

Ashi, compiler of the Babylonian Talmud, 19

Ashkenasi, Hannah, authoress, 120

Asireh ha-Tikwah, by Joseph Pensa, 237-238

Asiya, Kabbalistic term, 41

Astruc, Bible critic, 13

Auerbach, Berthold, novelist, 49, 50 quoted, 303

Auerbach, J. L., preacher, 322

Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung and Heine, 340

Avenare. See Abraham ibn Ezra

Avencebrol. See Gabirol, Solomon

Avendeath, Johannes, translator of "The Fount of Life," 26

Averroees and Maimonides, 163-164

Avicebron. See Gabirol, Solomon

Avicenna and Maimonides, 156, 158

Azariah de Rossi, scholar, 45

Azila, Kabbalistic term, 41

Barrios, de, Daniel, critic, 47, 129

Barruchius, Valentin, romance writer, 171

Bartholdy, Salomon, quoted, 308

Bartolocci, Hebrew scholar, 48

Bassista, Sabbatai, bibliographer, 47

Bath Halevi, Talmudist, 117

Bechai ibn Pakuda, philosopher, 35, 137

Beck. K., poet, 49

Beena, Kabbalistic term, 41

Beer, Jacob Herz, establishes a synagogue, 322

Beer, M., poet, 49

Behaim, Martin, scientist, 96

Belmonte, Bienvenida Cohen, poetess, 130

"Belshazzar" by Heine, 344

Bendavid. See Lazarus ben David

"Beni Israel" and the Ten Tribes, 259

Benjamin of Tudela, traveller, 37, 258 quoted, 263

Berachya ben Natronai (Hanakdan), fabulist, 34, 88

Beria, a character in Immanuel Romi's poem, 221-222

Beria, Kabbalistic term, 41

Bernhard, employer of Mendelssohn, 298, 300, 304

Bernhardt, Sarah, actress, 246

Bernstein, Aaron, Ghetto novelist, 50 quoted, 272

Bernstorff, friend of Henriette Herz, 313

Berschadzky on Saul Wahl, 282

Beruriah, wife of Rabbi Meir, 110-112

Bible. See Old Testament, The

Bible critics, 12, 13, 14

Bible dictionary, Jewish German, 100

"Birth and Death" from the Haggada, 66

Biurists, the Mendelssohn school, 309

Blackcoal, a character in "The Gift of Judah," 214

Blanche de Bourbon, wife of Pedro I, 169

Bleichroeder quoted, 296-297

Bloch, Pauline, writer, 140

Boccaccio, alluded to, 35

Boeckh, alluded to, 333

Bonet di Lattes, astronomer, 95

Bonifacio, Balthasar, accuser of Sara Sullam, 127

"Book of Diversions, The" by Joseph ibn Sabara, 214

"Book of Samuel," by Litte of Ratisbon, 119, 120

"Book of Songs" by Heine, 353

Boerne, Ludwig, quoted, 313-314, 359-361

Borromeo, cardinal, alluded to, 98

Brinkmann, friend of Henriette Herz, 313

Bruno di Lungoborgo, work of, translated, 86

Bruno, Giordano, philosopher, 82

Buch der Lieder by Heine, 353

Buffon quoted, 89

Bueschenthal, L. M., dramatist, 245

Buxtorf, father and son, scholars, 48 translates "The Guide of the Perplexed," 155

Calderon, alluded to, 239

Calderon, the Jewish, 100

Calendar compiled by the rabbis, 77

Caliphs and Jewish diplomats, 98

Campe, Joachim, on Mendelssohn, 314-315

Cardinal, Peire, troubadour, 171-172

Casimir the Great, Jews under, 286

Cassel, D., scholar, 49 quoted, 19-20

Castro de, Orobio, author, 47

Ceba, Ansaldo, and Sara Sullam, 125-128

Celestina, by Rodrigo da Cota, 97, 235

Chananel, alluded to, 257

Chanukka, story of, 359-360

Charlemagne and Jewish diplomats, 98

Charles of Anjou, patron of Hebrew learning, 92

Chasan, Bella, historian, 120

Chasdai ben Shaprut, statesman, 82

Chasdai Crescas, philosopher, 42, 93-94

Chassidism, a form of Kabbalistic Judaism, 46

Chesed, Kabbalistic term, 41

Children in the Talmud, 63-64

Chiya, rabbi, 19

Chiya bar Abba, Halachist, 21

Chmielnicki, Bogdan, and the Jews, 288

Chochma, Kabbalistic term, 41

Chotham Tochnith by Abraham Bedersi, 171

"Chronicle of the Cid," the first, by a Jew, 90, 170

Cicero and the drama, 232

Clement VI, pope, and Levi ben Gerson, 91

Cochin, the Ten Tribes in, 259

Cohen, friend of Heine, 350

Cohen, Abraham, Talmudist, 118

Cohen, Joseph, historian, 44

Coins, Polish, 286

Columbus, alluded to, 181 and Jews, 96

Comedy, nature of, 195-196

Commendoni, legate, on the Polish Jews, 287

"Commentaries on Aristotle" by Averroes, 163

"Commentary on Ecclesiastes" by Obadiah Sforno, 95

Commerce developed by Jews, 101-102

Comte Lyonnais, Palanus, romance, 90, 171

"Confessions" by Heine, quoted, 365-366

Conforte, David, historian, 43

Consejos y Documentos al Rey Dom Pedro by Santob de Carrion, 173-174

Consolacam as Tribulacoes de Ysrael by Samuel Usque, 44

Constantine, translator, 81

"Contemplation of the World" by Yedaya Penini, 40

"Contributions to History and Literature" by Zunz, 337

Copernicus and Jewish astronomers, 86

Correa, Isabella, poetess, 129

Cota, da, Rodrigo, dramatist, 97, 235

"Counsel and Instruction to King Dom Pedro" by Santob de Carrion, 173-174

"Court Secrets" by Rachel Ackermann, 119

Cousin, Victor, on Spinoza, 145

Creation, Maimonides' theory of, 160

Creed, the Jewish, by Maimonides, 151-152

Creizenach, Th., poet, 49

Cromwell, Oliver, and Manasseh ben Israel, 99

Dalalat al-Hairin, "Guide of the Perplexed," 154

Damm, teacher of Mendelssohn, 299

"Dance of Death," attributed to Santob, 174

Daniel, Immanuel Romi's guide in Paradise, 223

Dansa General, attributed to Santob, 174

Dante and Immanuel Romi, 35, 89, 220, 223

Dante, the Hebrew, 124

"Dark Continent, The." See Africa

David, philosopher, 83

David ben Levi, Talmudist, 46

David ben Yehuda, poet, 223

David d'Ascoli, physician, 97

David della Rocca, alluded to, 124

David de Pomis, physician, 45, 97

Davison, Bogumil, actor, 246

Deborah, as poetess, 106-107

De Causis, by David, 83

Decimal fractions first mentioned, 91

"Deeds of King David and Goliath, The," drama, 244

Delitzsch, Franz, quoted, 24

Del Medigo, Elias. See Elias del Medigo and Joseph del Medigo

De Rossi, Hebrew scholar, 48

Deutsch, Caroline, poetess, 139, 142-143

Deutsch, Emanuel, on the Talmud, 68-70

Deutsche Briefe by Zunz, 337

Dialoghi di Amore by Judah Abrabanel, 42, 95

Dichter und Kaufmann by Berthold Auerbach, 49

Die Freimuetigen, Zunz contributor to, 330

Die gottesdienstlichen Vortraege der Juden by Zunz, 48, 333-335

Diez, alluded to, 333

Dingelstedt, Franz, quoted, 319

Dioscorides, botanist, 82

Disciplina clericalis, a collection of tales, 89, 171

Divina Commedia, travestied, 35 imitated, 89, 124

Doctor angelicus, Thomas Aquinas, 94

Doctor Perplexorum, "Guide of the Perplexed," 154, 155

Document hypothesis of the Old Testament, 13

Dolce, scholar and martyr, 119

Donnolo, Sabattai, physician, 82

Dorothea of Kurland and Mendelssohn, 315

Dotina, friend of Henriette Herz, 313

Drama, the, among the ancient Hebrews, 229 classical Hebrew, 244-245, 248 first Hebrew, published, 239 first Jewish, 234 Jewish German, 246-247

Drama, the German, Jews in, 245 the Portuguese, Jews in, 236-237, 238 the Spanish, Jews in, 235-236

Dramatists, Jewish, 230, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 244, 245, 248

Drinking songs, 200-201, 204, 205, 209, 212-213

Dubno, Solomon, commentator, 309

Dukes, L., scholar, 49

Dunash ben Labrat, alluded to, 257

"Duties of the Heart" by Bechai, 137

Eben Bochan, by Kalonymos ben Kalonymos, 216-219

Egidio de Viterbo, cardinal, 44

Eibeschuetz, Jonathan, Talmudist, 47

Eldad ha-Dani, traveller, 37, 80, 257-258

Elias del Medigo, scholar, 44, 94

Elias Kapsali, scholar, 98

Elias Levita, grammarian, 44, 95

Elias Mizrachi, scholar, 98

Elias of Genzano, poet, 224

Elias Wilna, Talmudist, 46

Eliezer, rabbi, quoted, 253

Eliezer ha-Levi, Talmudist, 36

Eliezer of Metz, Talmudist, 36

El Muallima, Karaite, 117

Em beyisrael, Deborah, 107

Emden, Jacob, Talmudist, 47

Emin Pasha, alluded to, 250

"Enforced Apostasy," by Maimonides, 152

Engel, friend of Henriette Herz, 313

Enriquez, Antonio, di Gomez, dramatist, 100, 236

Enriquez, Isabella, poetess, 130

En-Sof, Kabbalistic term, 40, 41

Ephraim, the Israelitish kingdom, 251

Ephraim, Veitel, financier, 304, 316

Erasmus, quoted, 44

Esheth Lapidoth, Deborah, 106

Eskeles, banker, alluded to, 305

Esterka, supposed mistress of Casimir the Great, 286

"Esther," by Solomon Usque, 235

Esthori Hafarchi, topographer, 93

Ethiopia. See Abyssinia

Euchel, Isaac, Hebrew writer, 48, 309

Eupolemos, historian, 17

Euripides, alluded to, 230

Ewald, Bible critic, 14

"Exodus from Egypt, The" by Ezekielos, 230

Ezekiel, prophet, quoted, 252, 294-295

Ezekielos, dramatist, 17, 230

Ezra, alluded to, 253

Fables translated by Jews, 79, 86-87, 88

Fagius, Paul, Hebrew scholar, 44, 95

Falashas, the, and the missionaries, 263, 267 and the Negus Theodore, 267 customs of, 266 described by Halevy, 264 history of, 263 intellectual eagerness of, 266, 268 Messianic expectations of, 267-268 religious customs of, 265-266

Faust of Saragossa, Gabirol, 199

Faust translated into Hebrew, 248

Felix, Rachel, actress, 246

Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain and Isaac Abrabanel, 99

Ferrara, duke of, candidate in Poland, 278

Figo, Azariah, rabbi, 45

Fischels, Rosa, translator of the Psalms, 120

"Flaming Sword, The," by Abraham Bedersi, 171

"Flea Song" by Yehuda Charisi, 212

Fleck, actor, 311

Foa, Rebekah Eugenie, writer, 139

Folquet de Lunel, troubadour, 171-172

Fonseca Pina y Pimentel, de, Sara, poetess, 130

"Foundation of the Universe, The," by Isaac Israeli, 93

"Foundation of the World, The," by Moses Zacuto, 238-239

"Fount of Life, The," by Gabirol, 26

Fox fables translated, 79

Frank, Rabbi Dr., alluded to, 345

Fraenkel, David, teacher of Mendelssohn, 293

Frankel, Z, scholar, 49

Frankl, L. A., poet, 49

Frank-Wolff, Ulla, writer, 139

Franzos, K. E., Ghetto novelist, 50

Frederick II, emperor, patron of Hebrew learning, 40, 85, 89, 92

Frederick the Great and Mendelssohn, 301-303 and the Jews, 316-317

Freidank, German author, 185

Friedlaender, David, disciple of Mendelssohn, 48, 317, 350

Froehlich, Regina, writer, 131

Fuerst, J., scholar, 49

Gabirol, Solomon, philosopher, 26-27, 82-83, 94 poet, 24, 25-26, 27, 199

Gad, Esther, alluded to, 132

Galen and Gamaliel, 81 works of, edited by Maimonides, 153

Gama, da, Vasco, and Jews, 96-97

Gamaliel, rabbi, 18, 77, 81

Gans, David, historian, 47

Gans, Edward, friend of Heine, 324, 346, 350

Gaspar, Jewish pilot, 96

Gayo, Isaac, physician, 86

Geiger, Abraham, scholar, 49

Geldern, van, Betty, mother of Heine, 341, 344

Geldern, van, Gottschalk, Heine's uncle, 341

Geldern, van, Isaac, Heine's grandfather, 341

Geldern, van, Lazarus, Heine's uncle, 341

Geldern, van, Simon, author, 341

Gentz, von, Friedrich, friend of Henriette Herz, 313

Geometry in the Talmud, 77

German literature cultivated by Jews, 87

Gerson ben Solomon, scientist, 90

Gesellschafter, Zunz contributor to the, 330

Ghedulla, Kabbalistic term, 41

Ghemara, commentary on the Mishna, 60

Ghetto tales, 50

Ghevoora, Kabbalistic term, 41

Gideon, Jewish king in Abyssinia, 263

"Gift from a Misogynist, A," satire, by Yehuda ibn Sabbatai, 34, 214-216

Glaser, Dr. Edward, on the Falashas, 263

Goethe, alluded to, 314 and Jewish literature, 103-104 on Yedaya Penini, 40

Goldschmidt, Henriette, writer, 139

Goldschmidt, Johanna, writer, 139

Goldschmied, M., Ghetto novelist, 50

Goldsmid, Anna Maria, writer, 137

Goldsmid, Isaac Lyon, alluded to, 137

Gottloeber, A., dramatist, 248

Goetz, Ella, translator, 120

Graetz, Heinrich, historian, 49 quoted, 185

Graziano, Lazaro, dramatist, 235

Greece and Judaea contrasted, 194

Grimani, Dominico, cardinal, alluded to, 95

Grimm, alluded to, 333

Guarini, dramatist, 239

Gugenheim, Fromet, wife of Mendelssohn, 303 quoted, 307

"Guide of the Perplexed, The," contents of, 157-163 controversy over, 164-166 English translation of, 155 (note) purpose of, 155

Gumpertz, Aaron, and Mendelssohn, 297, 299 quoted, 298

Gundisalvi, Dominicus, translator of "The Fount of Life," 26

Guensburg, C., preacher, 322

Guensburg, Simon, confidant of Stephen Bathori, 287

"Gustavus Vasa" by Grace Aguilar, 134

Gutzkow, quoted, 306

Haggada and Halacha contrasted, 21, 60, 194-195

Haggada, the, characterized, 18, 54-55, 60-61, 64-70 cosmopolitan, 33 described by Heine, 20 ethical sayings from, 61-63 poetic quotations from, 65-68

Haggada, the, at the Passover service, 344-345

Hai, Gaon, 22

Halacha and Haggada contrasted, 21, 60, 194-195

Halacha, the, characterized, 18, 54-55 subjective, 33

Halevy, Joseph, and the Falashas, 264 quoted, 265-266

Halley's comet and Rabbi Joshua, 77

"Haman's Will and Death," drama, 244

Hamel, Glikel, historian, 120

Haendele, daughter of Saul Wahl, 276

Hariri, Arabic poet, 32, 34 (note)

Haroun al Rashid, embassy to, 99

Hartmann, M., poet, 49

Hartog, Marian, writer, 137

Hartung, actor, 248

Ha-Sallach, Moses ibn Ezra, 205

Hebrew drama, first, published, 237

Hebrew language, plasticity of, 32-33

Hebrew studies among Christians, 44, 47-48, 95, 98

Heckscher, Fromet, ancestress of Heine, 341

Hegel and Heine, 346

Heine, Heinrich, poet, 49 and Venus of Milo, 362 appreciation of, 340 characterized by Schopenhauer, 357-358 character of, 367 conversion of, 348-351 family of, 341-342, 344 Ghetto novelist, 50 in Berlin, 346-347 in Goettingen, 347-348 in Paris, 358-359 Jewish traits of, 345-348, 353-357 on Gabirol, 25-26 on the Jews, 362-363, 365-366 on Yehuda Halevi, 27 on Zunz, 327-328, 333 quoted, 9, 20, 28, 206 religious education of, 343 return of, to Judaism, 366 wife of, 363-364 will of, 366-367

Heine, Mathilde, wife of Heinrich Heine, 363-364

Heine, Maximilian, quoted, 344

"Heine of the middle ages," Immanuel Romi, 219

Heine, Samson, father of Heinrich Heine, 341, 342

Heine, Solomon, uncle of Heinrich Heine, 345, 352

Hellenism and Judaism, 75-76

Hellenists, Heine on, 359, 362

Hennings, alluded to, 314

Henry of Anjou, election of, in Poland, 286-287

Herder, poet, and Mendelssohn, 314 quoted, 296

Hermeneutics by Maimonides, 162-163

Herod and the stage, 230-231

Herrera, Abraham, Kabbalist, 99

Hertzveld, Estelle and Maria, writers, 140

Herz, Henriette, alluded to, 131, 133-346 and Dorothea Mendelssohn, 306 character of, 312-313 salon of, 311-314

Herz, Marcus, physicist, 310, 311

Herzberg-Fraenkel, L., Ghetto novelist, 50

Herzfeld, L., scholar, 49

Hess, M., quoted, 109

"Highest Faith, The" by Abraham ibn Daud, 36

Higros the Levite, musician, 369, 374

Hildebold von Schwanegau, minnesinger, 182

Hillel, rabbi, 18 quoted, 255

Hillel ben Samuel, translator 86

Himyarites and Jews, 256

Hirsch, scholar, 49

Hirsch, Jenny, writer, 139

"History and Literature of the Israelites" by Constance and Anna Rothschild, 142

"History of Synagogue Poetry" by Zunz, 336

"History of the Jews in England" by Grace Aguilar, 135

"History of the National Poetry of the Hebrews" by Ernest Meier, 14

Hitzig, architect, alluded to, 298

Hitzig, Bible critic, 13, 14

Hod, Kabbalistic term, 41