For right appreciation, which shall be neither over-appreciation nor under-appreciation, but true appreciation, based upon a correct estimation of all essentials, the first requisite is knowledge, thorough knowledge of all conditions, forces and influences. And the second requisite is pride, pride in this knowledge and in the object of this knowledge. And this, translated into the Menorah language, means, as I understand it, correct knowledge of Judaism, of our Jewish history, our Jewish past, our Jewish heritage, our Jewish religion, and pride in all this Judaism—a knowledge and pride that alone can enable us to know what Judaism truly is, and what its work and its mission for the present and the future must be, that alone can enable us to live positively and constructively as Jews and perpetuate our Judaism for the blessing of ourselves, our children, and all mankind. So I interpret the Menorah movement. And I heartily welcome such a movement, whose aim is the awakening of our Jewish college young men and women to a wholesome and genuine appreciation of themselves, of the Jewish side of their lives, of their Jewish consciousness and Jewish obligations, of the full meaning and responsibility imposed upon them by their subscribing to the name Jew, and their adherence to the religion of our fathers. We must look to our college-bred Jewish men and women to become the guiding spirits in our Judaism of to-morrow and of all the future. And I say, "Thank God for any movement that must surely lead to this goal."

DR. H. M. KALLEN

Since this seems to be the occasion for reminiscence, I want to take the liberty of recalling for you an episode of the formation of the Menorah Society at Harvard. It turned on the question of the right form of stating the object of the Society and you will remember perhaps that the object is stated in these terms: "The Harvard Menorah Society for the study and advancement of Hebraic culture and ideals"—not Jewish, not Judaistic, but Hebraic. The persons who agitated the use of the term Hebraic had certain very definite literary and historic and social relationships in mind.

To begin with, the word Judaism, in the English language, stands exclusively for a religion. It is co-ordinate with the word Christianity, the word Buddhism, the word Zoroastrianism, with any word that stands exclusively for a religion. Now in the history of the Jewish people, there was a time when Judaism did not exist, and if I understand the gentlemen who represent the Reform sect correctly—I speak under correction—the intention of the Reform movement is a reversion in fact to the religious attitude of the pre-Judaistic period in the history of the religion of the Jewish people. It is "prophetic" or "progressive Judaism" for which they stand, I gather, in contrast with the "Talmudical Judaism," of the larger orthodox sect. But the period of the great prophets is not the period of Judaism, and strictly speaking, the term Judaism excludes the prophetic element as an active force in Jewish life. This is significant, and to me the significance seems tremendous, for so far as my personal sympathies are concerned they go entirely with the prophetic aspects of Judaism, or better, of Hebraism.

Hebraism and Judaism

Hebraism and Judaism are words now in the English language and their usage is determined for us entirely by the writers who become authoritative either by their style or through the weight of their opinion, and this usage has given the term Hebraism a meaning such that it stands for the entire spirit of the Jew, not only in religion but in all that is Jewish; in English the term Hebraism covers the total biography of the Jewish soul, while the term Judaism stands only for a portion of it. Now the Jewish soul is the important thing, but no one has ever met a soul without a body (at least the people who claim they have met it are still required, for belief, to show evidence more than they have thus far shown); generally speaking, soul and body are co-ordinate and mutually imply each other. You cannot have one without the other. This is even more the case when you are dealing not with an individual but with a people. Hence it is the history of the Jewish body-politic with which Hebraism and its components, including Judaism, co-ordinate.

For this reason the gentlemen who stated the object of the Society in the constitution of the Harvard Menorah Society were compelled to take into consideration the following historic fact: There was a time in the history of mankind when religion and life were coincident. You know that the prophets were reformers. The orthodox religion which they fought was the religion of the land. They were progressive religionists, just as the gentlemen who are in the Reform sect to-day claim to be progressive religionists. When they established their religion, it became the religion of the whole nationality, for all ancient religion is national religion. Religion for the Greeks, and religion for the Jews, and religion for the Syrians, and for the Babylonians, and the Romans, was essentially national and political, and the political nationalism of religion in the time of the Roman Empire was the immediate basis for the persecution of the Jews by the Romans. The latter persecuted the Jews not primarily because they disliked the Jews, but because the Jews were a political danger in their refusal to worship the representative of the State in the shape of the Emperor. But in the development of civilization, religion became detached from the totality of civilized living. In the progressive division of labor religion became specialized. The priestly group learned to confine itself more and more to the "things of the spirit"—cult, ritual, dogma, while the other elements in civilization loomed larger and larger. Religion remained social, but society was no longer religious. Life was secularized. I think that the representatives of the Reform sect, in one of their conferences, declared that America is not a Christian country. In so doing they acknowledged this fact.

Continuity of the Jewish Spirit

Throughout the history of the Jewish people, there is a continuity of spirit which is very different from the continuity of form that attends both the secular and the religious developments of Jewish life. This is the same in both these aspects of Jewish life—in the secular Jewish poetry and thought of the middle ages and up to the present day. Even a Bergson, ostensibly a Frenchman, expresses in his philosophy what is essentially the Hebraic conception of the nature of reality and the destiny of man. From Amos through Job, through the philosophers of the middle ages, to Ahad Ha-'Am there is a clear and accountable continuity. Finally, there is the development of the whole of the secular life of modern Jewry, in Yiddish and in Hebrew. Yiddish may be unpleasant, but Yiddish is no less the speech of the Jews than English, no less the speech of the Jews than Aramaic, and Arabic and Ladino, and all of these have acquired literary and qualitative characteristics which are identical as expressions of the spirit of the Jew, of the Hebraic spirit.

This may be seen generally in the case of Yiddish alone. Yiddish, as you know, is a German dialect; it is middle high German in its base, and German is an inflected language; its rhythms are essentially long, periodic, indeterminate, radically different from the rhythms of Hebrew, involving a different kind of co-ordination and mode. But compare Yiddish with German, and you find quite an antagonistic literary quality. Yiddish reads like the Psalms, and the Bible, and the Talmud; it doesn't read like German until it is Germanized. The whole genius of the tongue has been altered by Jewish use so that its spiritual quality has taken on the quality of the race that uses the tongue, and its literary kinship has become Hebraic.

Again, there is this whole mass of neo-English, neo-Russian, neo-German literatures which, written by Jews, deal with the life of the Jews, with their interests and character. This is not religious. What is its relation to Jewry? Yet again, there is any number of Jewish individuals, among whom I must count myself, who find it impossible to adjust their consciences with any official type of theological doctrine, who are interested in discovering the truth, and are compelled to acknowledge that no truth has been discovered finally, once and for all; there are hundreds and thousands such. What is to be their relation to their people if Jews are to be considered members merely of Judaistic sects? Yet Jews they are, and if they do not contribute directly to Judaism, they do contribute to Hebraism.

Hebraism stands not for that particular expression of the Jewish mind, religion, but for all that has appeared in Jewish history, both religious and secular. The term Judaism stands for that partial expression of the Jewish genius which is religious.

The Ethical Motive of Judaism

It has been said that the genius of the Jew is entirely religious. I do not think that that is historically a demonstrable proposition. For the dominant motive even in Judaism is not a religious motive. It is an ethical motive. Judaism does not conceive its God as requiring man to be damned for his glory. It conceives its God as an instrument by the worship of whom "thy days may be lengthened in the land." Righteousness and not salvation is the aim even of the Jewish religion. Hebraism is the name for this living spirit which demands righteousness, expressed in all the different interests in which Jews, as Jews, have a share—in art, science, philosophy and social organization and in religion. Hebraism, hence, is a wider term than religion and its continuity embraces, but is not embraced by, the continuity of religion.

Now the Harvard Menorah Society, taking this fact into consideration, made use, because of the tradition of English usage, of the term "Hebraic." It recognized that since Hebraism is more comprehensive than Judaism, many people might be Hebraists who are not and need not be Judaists. It refused to exclude them from a share in Jewish life and an opportunity for Jewish service. The organization goes on the principle—both the Intercollegiate and the constituent Societies—that nothing Jewish is alien to it. For this reason the Menorah takes no sides; for this reason it is Hebraic and not Judaistic. For this reason it welcomes everything Jewish without exception—theological and secular, Russian, German, French, English. It requires only that a thing shall be Jewish, that it shall be a possible part of the organic total we call Hebraism.

Hebraism is the flower and fruit of the whole of Jewish life. Its root is the ethnic nationality of the Jewish people, and with this also the secularizing reformers agree when they prohibit and discourage the marriage of Jew with Gentile.

Many of us, however, are not content with merely the status quo. Throughout the nineteenth century it has thrown us into a series of dishonorable compromises. We want a condition—I speak now for myself and not for the Menorah—we want a condition in which the genius of the Jew, the Hebraic spirit, may express itself without any need of compromise. The orthodox Jew, at least, retains his integrity with his darkness. But we are in danger of losing our integrity. We concede to our environment point after point. But we are not liberated in spirit by these concessions; we are merely turned into amateur Gentiles. The orthodox sectary makes no concession to environment, and tends to petrify and die. The reformed sectary makes too many, and tends to dissolve and die. This is the penalty for the status quo.

Life, to be sure, consists of compromise and concession. But for integral living we must make them as masters, not serfs. There must be one place where the ancestral spirit of the Jew will not need to adapt itself to the world, but will, like the English or French spirit, adapt the world to itself. That place is determined nationally, just as the places of all European culture are determined nationally and racially.

The Aspiration for a Jewish State

Pride in ancestry is not pride of race, but pride in the spirit of the race, and pride of ancestry is not pride merely of background, but pride in the obligations that ancestry sets. All aristocrats have one motto—it is noblesse oblige. This must be the motto of the Jew. We must hence carry our obligation in the spirit of the prophets, which is not primarily a theological spirit, but a purely humane spirit, for which the necessity of man determines the invocation of God; in which the ideal of a free and happy humanity, in a just and democratic society, is the dominating ideal; in which a righteous Jewish state is a persistent aspiration. This is the Hebraism which must underly all the activities of the Menorah Association.

This Hebraism, academically realized through study, must be realized in the lives of individuals through work, as Dr. Grossmann has well said, and in the life of the great Jewish mass in a free Jewish state. Every ideal we acquire from the past must be turned into a fact of the present. Noblesse oblige!

DR. DAVID PHILIPSON

I am reminded that this day marks the one hundredth anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Ghent—one hundred years of peace between English-speaking peoples. I need to be reminded of this after the speech that has just been made, because much that was said has quite fired my fighting spirit—but this is a day of peace and it might not be quite in the spirit of this anniversary day to say all I might otherwise say in answer to the points that have been made and with which I differ radically.

There are some things in Dr. Kallen's eloquent address that I do believe, but there are many more things with which I do not agree. But let that be as it may, I was very much interested in his remark, that the "Reform sect," as he is pleased to call us, harks back to the prophets. This has been claimed frequently by the reformers themselves, but he puts a new interpretation upon it; he says the prophets were pre-Judaistic. This is the Christian point of view. They claim that Judaism was the growth of the post-exilic period, but we reformers interpret the term Judaism altogether differently.

The Significance of Reform Judaism

Judaism means for us the Jewish religion and all that this implies; if the Reform movement in its beginnings went back to prophetism it was simply for this reason—that the pioneers of the Reform movement recognized that the Jews had fallen into the very condition that Dr. Kallen deprecates, namely, they had gotten away from life inasmuch as they had been confined to the ghetto where they had been excluded from the currents of contemporary life. Judaism had become a ghetto religion, and because of this divorce between life and religion the Reform movement arose. The Reform movement is not simply a matter of creed. It affects the whole life of the Jew. One of its basic principles is that the religion of the Jew must square with his life; the needs of the Jew in the modern environment must be taken into consideration by Jewish leaders; Reform Judaism, far from making a separation and raising a barrier between the Jew and life, as those who call us reformed sectarians like to say—quite to the contrary, reconciles the Jew to the civilization in which he is living and wherein his children are growing up. This, to my mind, is the great significance of the Reform movement, and I believe that all those who truly understand it look upon it in that way.

The Reform movement, as the movement for religious emancipation, was the accompaniment of similar emancipatory movements affecting the Jews at the close of the eighteenth century. First there was the linguistic emancipation when under the leadership of Moses Mendelssohn the Jews of Germany discarded the use of the German-Jewish jargon or Yiddish, the language of the Jew's degradation, (for there would have been no such thing as Yiddish had the Jew not been degraded and excluded as he was in the countries of Europe) and began the employment of pure German. Secondly, there was the educational emancipation. The Jews had been educated in chedarim where they received instruction only in Hebrew branches and no so-called secular education whatsoever. This separated the Jew from the culture of the world. At the close of the eighteenth century German Jews began to attend schools and universities. Gradually this took place also in other countries. Thirdly, there was the civil or political emancipation, when after the French Revolution the countries of western Europe, one after the other, accorded the Jews the rights of men. The Reform movement or, in other words, the religious emancipation, is simply the result of great world forces, as embodied in these various aspects of emancipation, and for this reason the Reform movement, far from being simply a matter of creed or theological belief, made the Jew a citizen of the world and fitted him for the modern environment.

The "Body and Soul" of Jewry

Now there is one other point made by the previous speaker to which I feel that I must refer and that is the matter of "body and soul." This is a favorite phrase of Zionist writers and speakers as emphasizing the difference between Zionists and reformers. We reformers also believe that the body Jewish is necessary, but in a sense different from the Zionistic claim that the Jewish nation must be re-established. I as a reformer and a non-Zionist also use the term "the Jewish people," but in the sense of a "religious people," not a "political people." This involves a vital distinction—the distinction between religionism and nationalism. Yes, I also believe that the body, the religious community, is necessary. The reform rabbinical conference declared against intermarriage for the very reason that it is all important that the Jewish people, the mamleket kohanim, the goy kadosh, be the vessel embodying the religious idea, the spirit. But let it be understood clearly that nationally we are poles apart from the Zionists. Nationally I am an American. I also feel that we ought not to have hyphenated Americans, but Americans pure and simple. In that sense I am nationally an American without a hyphen. Religiously I am a Jew, and religiously I am part and parcel of the Jewish people with whom my religious fortunes are intertwined. Further, I feel very much as Dr. Kallen does in regard to our duty towards the Jews made destitute by the murderous European war. They have none else to look to and we must help them; for whatever may be our differences, we must stand united in this pressing duty of the hour, this work of mercy. But may God speed the day when the Jews in Poland, Russia and Roumania will receive full rights so that nationally they may be considered Poles, Russians or Roumanians as are all others in those lands, as is the case here in free America. To my mind this is the only effective solution to the so-called Jewish problem in those countries.

Freedom is the Messiah that is still to come to the Jews in the lands where they are oppressed, so that everywhere they may be at one in the rights of citizenship with their fellow countrymen, differing from them in their religion alone. This is the great distinction I desired to draw between the Jew nationally and the Jew as a member of a religious people; this "religious people" is the body of which Judaism is the soul.

PROF. SHARFMAN

I am constrained to close this meeting with a statement similar to that made by our Chancellor at the conclusion of the public meeting last evening. This was a typical Menorah discussion. We are an open forum for all points of view. We are glad to hear Dr. Kallen's opinions; we are glad to hear Dr. Philipson's opinions. I am sure that out of this clash of views will come a better understanding of the Menorah idea, a truer and deeper realization of the strivings of our Menorah movement.

III. The Business Sessions

FIRST SESSION

Called to order in the Faculty Room, McMicken Hall, at 11 A.M., by President I. Leo Sharfman. N. M. Lyon, of the University of Cincinnati, was appointed Secretary pro tem.

Upon the presentation of credentials, the following were seated as the Representatives of their respective Menorah Societies in the Administrative Council: College of the City of New York, George J. Horowitz; Columbia University, M. David Hoffman; University of Illinois, Sidney Casner; University of Michigan, Jacob Levin; University of Minnesota, Dr. Moses Barron; Ohio State University, Herman Lebeson; University of Wisconsin, Dr. Horace M. Kallen. And the following were seated as Deputies: Clark University, Philip Wascerwitz; Harvard University, George A. Dreyfous; Johns Hopkins University, Jerome Mark; New York University, S. Felix Mendelson; University of North Carolina, N. M. Lyon; University of Pennsylvania, Joseph Salesky; Penn State College, H. L. Lavender; University of Texas, Jacob Marcus; Western Reserve University, Sol Landman.

The applications for admission into the Association of the Menorah Societies at Brown University, University of Cincinnati, Hunter College, University of Maine, the Universities in the City of Omaha, Radcliffe College, Valparaiso University, and University of Washington were presented. After due consideration of the facts in each case and the statements of the University authorities, all of the applications were accepted and the Menorah Societies named were formally admitted into the Association by the unanimous vote of the Administrative Council.

Upon the presentation of their credentials, the following were seated as Representatives: University of Cincinnati, Abraham J. Feldman; the Universities in the City of Omaha, Jacques Rieur; Valparaiso University, Florence Turner. And the following were seated as Deputies: Radcliffe College, S. Marie Pichel; Hunter College, Naomi Rasinsky.

The role of Representatives and Deputies was read by the Secretary, and the dues of the several Menorah Societies to the Intercollegiate Menorah Association for 1915 were paid.

Chancellor Henry Hurwitz read a letter of greeting to the Convention from Justice Irving Lehman of New York, Chairman of the Graduate Advisory Menorah Committee. (See page 125.)

SECOND SESSION

Called to order by President Sharfman at 3 P.M. in the Faculty Room, McMicken Hall. Chancellor Hurwitz delivered the report of the Officers for 1914.

Abstract of Officers' Report for 1914

In his report in behalf of the Officers, the Chancellor referred to the organization in the past year of the eight Menorah Societies which were admitted into the Intercollegiate Menorah Association at the previous session of the Convention, making in all thirty-five constituent Societies, every one having arisen spontaneously at its college or university, with the full approval and encouragement of the authorities. Additional Societies are in the process of formation at several other universities.

With reference to the organization of Graduate Menorah Societies, the time was deemed inopportune to proceed definitely in the matter, the war situation absorbing the attention and energies of so many of those who would otherwise be interested in the idea of Graduate Menorah organization, and it was recommended that detailed consideration of the question be laid over another year. But a beginning of Graduate organization has already been made in Scranton, Pa., where a Graduate Menorah Society has been formed.

The Intercollegiate Menorah Association has been very cordially invited to join the Corda Fratres International Federation of Students, whose objects are: "To unite student movements and organizations throughout the world, to study student problems of every nature, and to promote among students closer international relations, mutual understandings and friendship; to encourage the study of international relations and problems; to stimulate a sympathetic appreciation of the character, problems and intellectual currents of other nations; to facilitate foreign study, and to increase its value and fruitfulness. The movement is neutral in all special religious, political and economic principles." (From the official declaration of principles.) The Corda Fratres at present comprises the following national organizations as its constituents: Consulates of Corda Fratres in Italy, Holland, Hungary and Greece; the Association Generale des Etudiants de Paris, and the Union Nationale des Associations des Etudiants de France; the Verband der Internationalen Studentenverein in Germany; the Liga de Estudiantes Americanos, including student organizations in the Argentine Republic, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and other countries in South America; and the Association of Cosmopolitan Clubs in North America. Thus, at present, the sole United States constituent is the Association of Cosmopolitan Clubs. It was recommended that the Intercollegiate Menorah Association accept the invitation to join Corda Fratres as a unit co-ordinate with the Association of Cosmopolitan Clubs, it being understood that the Menorah Association, while thus expressing its approval of the purposes and spirit of Corda Fratres and desiring to aid in its influence and to contribute the element of Jewish culture and ideals to its spiritual constituency, would not be qualified in any way as to its autonomy, purposes, and activities.

During the past year the Association continued its lecture system, and genuine thanks are due to all the speakers, members of the Menorah College of Lecturers, who have so generously given of their time and effort to the Menorah Societies.

Similarly, the Association has been enabled to continue sending Menorah Libraries to its constituent Societies. In most cases these books have been placed at the disposal of all the members of the university no less than of the members of the Menorah Societies, and the authorities have expressed their warmest gratitude for these contributions to their library facilities, even though the books remained the property of the Jewish Publication Society of America.

The presence of the books has done a great deal to stimulate actual reading and study on the part of Menorah members, and the work of the study groups has notably increased during the past year. This is a most gratifying evidence of the seriousness with which the students are taking hold of the Menorah idea. They are still hampered by lack of suitable syllabi, the preparation of which has been unfortunately delayed on account of the impaired health of the scholar who had undertaken to prepare them, but it was hoped that the syllabi would be made available before long.

The chief visible product of the administration the past year was the 180-page booklet entitled "The Menorah Movement," which contains a full and official exposition of the nature and purposes of the Menorah movement, a detailed history of the several Societies as well as of the Intercollegiate organization, including reports of the conferences and conventions, besides other material illustrating the attitude of the university authorities and the general community towards the Menorah movement. Its preparation took several months of labor on the part of the Officers of the Association (special credit being due to the Secretary, Mr. Isador Becker), assisted by the various Societies. An edition of five thousand, of which only a comparatively small number of copies remain, was distributed all over the country among the members of the Societies, other students, university authorities, alumni, and the interested public. It served to arouse both the academic and lay interest in the movement and to spread authoritative information about the nature and purposes of the Menorah Societies.

This publication also prepared the way for the issue of the permanent and periodical Journal of the Menorah Association, the desirability of which has been felt almost from the beginning of the Intercollegiate organization and reaffirmed at the last Convention. It had been hoped that the first number of THE MENORAH JOURNAL would appear in time for this Convention, but the demands of an initial number that should in every way be worthy of the Menorah ideal of the JOURNAL required a little more time, and the first issue could not appear before January, 1915.

THE MENORAH JOURNAL, it was hoped, would not only spread interesting and authoritative information about the activities of the Menorah Societies and stimulate their work further in the future, but would itself be a potent means of promoting Jewish knowledge and literature. The JOURNAL was meant to appeal not to Menorah members alone nor to students only, but to all within and without the universities who were interested in the literary treatment of Jewish life and aspiration. The JOURNAL was extremely fortunate in having the counsel and literary co-operation of many leaders of Jewish thought and action of all parties (for list of Consulting Editors see Contents Page), the JOURNAL itself, like the Menorah Societies, being non-partisan, a forum for the free expression of variant views.

Upon the success of the JOURNAL will largely depend the future progress of the Menorah movement and its other literary enterprises contemplated, e. g., pamphlet essays and Menorah Classics, which for the present should be postponed, all energies having to be devoted to the JOURNAL.

The gratifying encouragement given to the JOURNAL enterprise by many men in the community is but a specific application of the co-operation of the Graduate Menorah Committee, headed by Justice Irving Lehman, which has continued during the past year to assist the Association generously and in the most admirable spirit, the committee reposing absolutely perfect confidence in the officers of the Association. To that co-operation and spirit of confidence the Association owes a great deal which it can repay only by continued effective devotion to the cause which is equally dear to the students and the graduates. It was deemed advisable that for the present the Graduate Menorah Committee should continue as an informal body.

A gratifying evidence of the mutual co-operation of the Menorah Societies in a material way during the past year was shown in the appropriation of fifty dollars by the Harvard Menorah Society for the Association.

All in all, the Association during the past year may be said to have advanced satisfactorily, though the Officers are conscious of the great opportunities which still remain before the organization. Indeed, the Menorah work is still in its beginnings. With the loyal co-operation of the students and the graduates, the Association looks forward confidently to a bright and big future.

Resolutions

After due consideration and discussion, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted:

RESOLVED, That the Intercollegiate Menorah Association, organized for the promotion in American Colleges and Universities of the study of Jewish history, culture and problems, and the advancement of Jewish ideals, affiliate with the "Corda Fratres" International Federation of Students. Note: This resolution was adopted upon the conditions (1) that the Intercollegiate Menorah Association be received into the International Federation of Students as a unit co-ordinate with the Association of Cosmopolitan Clubs, and (2) that the autonomy, purposes and activities of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association shall nowise be qualified by such affiliation.[H]

RESOLVED, That the fifty dollars contributed by the Harvard Menorah Society to the Intercollegiate Menorah Association be devoted to THE MENORAH JOURNAL.

RESOLVED, That the Officers be constituted a committee to investigate the nature and work of student organizations analogous to the Menorah in other parts of the world and to submit a report thereon at the next Intercollegiate Menorah Convention. (Readopted from the last Convention.)

RESOLVED, That the Officers be constituted a committee to consider and draw up definite plans for "Menorah insignia and distinctions."

THIRD SESSION

The third session was a public meeting held at 8.15 P.M. in McMicken Auditorium, University of Cincinnati. (For report see page 121.)

FOURTH SESSION

Called to order on Thursday, December 24th, at 9.15 A.M., in the Faculty Room, McMicken Hall, by President Sharfman.

After due consideration and discussion the following resolutions were unanimously adopted:

RESOLVED, That the incoming Officers investigate the problem of the organization of Graduate Menorah Societies and prepare a report with recommendations for submission to the constituent Societies at the beginning of the next academic year(1915-16).

The Administrative Council, in session assembled, hereby expresses its hearty approval of the relationship that has arisen and has been maintained between the Intercollegiate Menorah Association, through its Officers, and a body of representative Jewish citizens of public spirit, known as a Graduate Advisory Committee, and gratefully records its deep appreciation of the wise counsel and generous assistance of this Graduate Advisory Committee in the prosecution of the Menorah purposes, and

RESOLVES, First, that these informal relations between the Intercollegiate Menorah Association and the Graduate Advisory Committee be permitted to continue as heretofore, and second, that the incoming Officers of the Association present plans looking to the permanent organization of this Graduate Advisory Committee, at the next mid-winter meeting of the Administrative Council. (Readopted from the last Convention.)

The Intercollegiate Menorah Convention extends its cordial greetings to Justice Irving Lehman and acknowledges with warm appreciation his welcome message and his generous assurance of willing co-operation. The Association is encouraged to carry forward with renewed vigor and inspiration its work of promoting the study of Jewish history and culture at American Colleges and Universities and of advancing Jewish ideals; to merit the confidence and support of the Graduate Advisory Committee.

RESOLVED, That each constituent Menorah Society should be bound to seek the advice and consent of the Officers of the Association before soliciting assistance from any source. (Readopted from the last Convention.)

RESOLVED, That the Administrative Council of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association, in annual meeting assembled, hereby enthusiastically expresses its entire confidence and trust in the work done by the Officers of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association and its appreciation of the able and efficient manner in which they conducted and supervised the work of the organization during the past year.

The oral reports of the several Menorah Societies, in amplification of their written reports, were presented and discussed.

FIFTH SESSION

The fifth session was an informal luncheon held in the Banquet Hall of the Hotel Gibson, Cincinnati, at 1 P.M. (For a report of the addresses, see page 125.)

SIXTH SESSION

Immediately following the luncheon, at 4 P.M., the sixth session was convened in the private auditorium of the Hotel Gibson.

The following resolution was unanimously adopted:

RESOLVED, That the Officers of the Association take steps to provide Menorah Societies with syllabi of courses in Jewish history, Jewish literature, and contemporaneous Jewish problems. (Readopted from the last Convention.)

Upon proceeding to the choice of Officers of the Association for 1915, the following were elected: Chancellor, Henry Hurwitz of Boston, Mass. (re-elected by acclamation); President, I. Leo Sharfman of the University of Michigan (re-elected by acclamation); First Vice-President, Isadore Levin, of Harvard University; Second Vice-President, Milton D. Sapiro of the University of California; Third Vice-President, Abraham J. Feldman of the University of Cincinnati; Treasurer, N. Morais Lyon of the University of Cincinnati; and Secretary, Charles K. Feinberg of New York University.

After some discussion as to the advisability of deciding immediately upon the place of the next Annual Convention, it was

RESOLVED, That the place of meeting for the next Annual Convention be left to the judgment of the Officers of the Association.

After passing unanimously a Resolution thanking the University of Cincinnati, the Hebrew Union College, the Cincinnati Menorah Society, and the city of Cincinnati for the cordial reception accorded to the Convention, adjournment was had at 5.45 P.M.

N. M. LYON, Secretary pro tem.

NOTE: In the course of the convention, several amendments to the Constitution of the Association were proposed and adopted. The Constitution as amended follows:

CONSTITUTION

OF THE INTERCOLLEGIATE MENORAH ASSOCIATION

ARTICLE I: NAME

The name of this organization shall be the Intercollegiate Menorah Association.

ARTICLE II: OBJECT

The object of this Association shall be the promotion, in American colleges and universities, of the study of Jewish history, culture, and problems, and the advancement of Jewish ideals.

ARTICLE III: MEMBERSHIP

Sec. 1.—Menorah Societies in American colleges and universities, having the object defined in Article II, shall be eligible for membership in this Association, provided that membership in such Societies is open to all members of their respective colleges or universities so far as the efficient pursuit of the object may permit.

Sec. 2.—The Administrative Council (provided for in Article IV) shall have power to elect such honorary members as it may deem fit.

Sec. 3.—One constituent Society may be composed of members of two or more neighboring colleges or universities.

Sec. 4.—All eligible Societies which adopt this constitution by January 3, 1913, shall constitute the charter members of this Association.

Sec. 5.—Other Societies which are formed and eligible, or may be formed and become eligible, for membership in this Association, shall be admitted into this Association by the Administrative Council, and shall become members upon adopting this Constitution.

Sec. 6.—By a two-thirds vote of the Administrative Council, that body, in session, shall have power to deprive of membership any Society which may not be carrying out the object of the Association, or may be employing methods prejudicial to its spirit.

ARTICLE IV: ADMINISTRATION

Sec. 1.—The administration of this Association shall be in the hands of the Administrative Council.

Sec. 2.—Every constituent Society shall delegate one member to be its Representative in the Council who shall, at the time of his election, be directly connected with the college or the university as a student or as a member of the Faculty.

Sec. 3.—The Administrative Council shall elect annually at its mid-winter meeting the following Officers of the Association: Chancellor, First Vice-President, Second Vice-President, Third Vice-President, Treasurer, and Secretary.

(a) Officers who are not Representatives shall ex-officio be members of the Administrative Council.

Sec. 4.—The Administrative Council shall hold a meeting during the mid-winter recess, when and where it shall please a majority of the Council. Other meetings of the Council may be called upon the request of a majority of its members, and held when and where it shall please a majority. Notice of every meeting shall be sent to each member at least four weeks beforehand. A copy of the minutes of each meeting shall be duly sent by the Secretary to each constituent Society.

Sec. 5.—In case the Representative of a Society is unable to attend a meeting of the Council, his Society may send a duly accredited and instructed Deputy[I] who is not already the Representative or Deputy of another Society.

Sec. 6.—A quorum of the Administrative Council shall consist of the Representatives or Deputies from two-thirds of the constituent Societies.

(Note:—It is understood that a term of office of a Representative or Officer shall be one year, from one mid-winter meeting to the next).

ARTICLE V: DUES

Sec. 1.—The annual dues from each constituent Society shall be five dollars, which shall be paid to the Treasurer before the first meeting of the Administrative Council.

Sec. 2.—If a Society be admitted into membership after such date, its dues shall be paid upon admission.

Sec. 3.—Societies whose dues remain unpaid after the time set shall lose their vote in the Administrative Council until payment is made. Neglect to pay for two years may be a cause for dismissal from the Association by the Administrative Council.

ARTICLE VI: DATE OF EFFECT

This Constitution shall take effect January 2, 1913.

ARTICLE VII: AMENDMENTS

An amendment to this Constitution may be adopted by a two-thirds vote of the Administrative Council.

FOOTNOTES:

[G] See Prof. Sharfman's address, page 124, and Dr. Kohler's remarks at the Convention luncheon, page 128.

[H] The Association of Cosmopolitan Clubs, at its Convention at Ohio State University on Dec. 26-30, 1914, passed a resolution of greeting and welcome to the Intercollegiate Menorah Association.

[I] How, and to what extent, a Deputy shall be instructed, depends upon the will of the Society which accredits him. (This was the sense of the Constituent Convention.)



Notes

Of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association

Brown Menorah Dedication Exercises

The Brown Menorah Society held its dedication exercises in the auditorium of the Brown Union on January 16, 1915. The Chairman was Maurice J. Siff, '15, President of the Society. Morris J. Wessel, '11, spoke of the need of the Menorah from the graduate's point of view. Chancellor Henry Hurwitz brought the greetings of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association and explained the purposes of the Menorah movement. President W. H. P. Faunce of the University, in his response, welcomed the Menorah Society to Brown. Rabbi Nathan Stern, of Providence, spoke upon the significance of the Menorah, and unveiled and lit a brass Menorah which he presented to the Society. Dean Otis E. Randall spoke upon "The Educational Value of College Organizations," and expressed the hope that the new Menorah Society would contribute to the uplift of the student body.

President Faunce said, in part: "This Society must justify itself by making better Brown men than ever before. Most especially among its duties it must strive for a type of Brown man that cultivates the best there is in himself, a man who respects himself, soul, body and spirit, the type of man who flings himself gladly into whatever he believes in. And so I hope to-night that every member of this Society will cherish the finest things in the history of his own people if he is a member of the Jewish nation—that he will cultivate everything that is worthy and noble and try to help his brethren throughout the world."

The Thirty-Sixth Menorah Society

A Menorah Society has recently been organized at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Boston. The meeting preliminary to definite organization was held in the Technology Union on March 9. Isadore Levin of the Harvard Menorah Society, First Vice-President of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association, brought the greetings of the Association and explained the Menorah purposes and procedure. Leo I. Dana, '16, was elected President.

In a communication to the Chancellor of the Menorah Association, Dean Alfred E. Burton of the Institute writes: "I take pleasure in stating that we shall be glad to have a branch of the Menorah Society formed among our undergraduates, and I can endorse the names of the officers who have been chosen. They are all earnest students in good standing at the Institute and I am sure they will be able to establish a branch of the Menorah Society that will be a credit to the general intercollegiate organization."

The first lecture before the Society was delivered on April 5 by Dr. H. M. Kallen of the University of Wisconsin. The subject was "Hebraism and Nationality."

Menorah Dinners

The Menorah Society of Clark University held its "First Annual Banquet" on December 17, 1914. President Max Smelensky, '15, introduced the toastmaster, Samuel Resnick, '13. The speakers were President G. Stanley Hall of the University, President Edmund C. Sanford of the College, Dean James P. Porter, Rabbi H. H. Rubenovitz of Boston, A. W. Hillman, '07, Joseph Talamo, '14, and Chancellor Hurwitz. (For the substance of President Hall's address see page 87.)

The Ohio State Menorah Society held its Annual Banquet on February 21. The toastmaster was Harry M. Udovitch, '14. (Mr. Udovitch was last year President of the Corda Fratres Association of Cosmopolitan Clubs). The speakers were Professor Joseph A. Leighton, Professor Ludwig Lewisohn, President Henry Greenberger, '15, of the Society, Herman Lebeson, '15, Ohio State Representative to the Intercollegiate Administrative Council, Rabbi Morris N. Taxon of Columbus, Dr. Sylvester Goodman, '06, and Helman Rosenthal, '12.

The Harvard Menorah Society will hold its seventh annual dinner on May 3.

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes:

Page 90, "alterative" changed to "alternative" (is an alternative)

Page 106, "qualite" changed to "qualite" (l'aquerir la qualite)

This text uses both cooeperation and co-operation, as well as today and to-day.



THE MENORAH JOURNAL

Published Bi-monthly During the Academic Year By The Intercollegiate Menorah Association "For the Study and Advancement of Jewish Culture and Ideals" 600 Madison Avenue, New York

Editor-in-Chief HENRY HURWITZ

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Business Manager B. S. POUZZNER

Board of Consulting Editors

DR. CYRUS ADLER LOUIS D. BRANDEIS DR. LEE K. FRANKEL PROF. FELIX FRANKFURTER PROF. ISRAEL FRIEDLAENDER PROF. RICHARD GOTTHEIL DR. MAX HELLER DR. JOSEPH JACOBS DR. KAUFMAN KOHLER JUSTICE IRVING LEHMAN JUDGE JULIAN W. MACK DR. J. L. MAGNES PROF. MAX L. MARGOLIS DR. H. PEREIRA MENDES DR. MARTIN A. MEYER DR. DAVID PHILIPSON DR. SOLOMON SCHECHTER HON. OSCAR S. STRAUS SAMUEL STRAUSS JUDGE MAYER SULZBERGER MISS HENRIETTA SZOLD FELIX M. WARBURG DR. STEPHEN S. WISE

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VOLUME I JUNE, 1915 NUMBER 3

CONTENTS

THE POTENCY OF THE JEWISH RACE Charles W. Eliot 141 ISRAEL AND MEDICINE Sir William Osler 145 THE WAR FROM A JEWISH STANDPOINT Richard Gottheil 150 O SWEET ANEMONES: A Song Jessie E. Sampler 158 "PATHS OF PLEASANTNESS" David Werner Amram 159 THE JEWISH GENIUS IN LITERATURE Edward Chauncey Baldwin 164 JEWISH WORTHIES: JOCHANAN BEN ZAKKAI Abraham M. Simon 173 ZIONISM: A MENORAH PRIZE ESSAY Marvin M. Lowenthal 179 FROM COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY: Activities of Menorah Societies 194 NOTES of The Intercollegiate Menorah Association 200

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of THE MENORAH JOURNAL

published bi-monthly at New York, N.Y. for April 1, 1915

Editor-in-chief, Henry Hurwitz, 600 Madison Ave., New York City; Associate Editor, I. Leo Sharfman, 1607 S. University Ave., Ann Arbor, Mich.; Managing Editor, Hyman Askowith, North Pelham, N. Y.; Business Manager, Benjamin S. Pouzzner, 52 Vanderbilt Ave., New York City. Publisher, Intercollegiate Menorah Association, 600 Madison Ave., New York City. Owners: (If a corporation, give its name and the names and addresses of stockholders holding 1 per cent or more of total amount of stock. If not a corporation, give names and addresses of individual owners.) Intercollegiate Menorah Association, 600 Madison Ave., New York City. An organization composed of thirty-five societies in as many colleges and universities in the country, having a total membership of about 3000, "For the Study and Advancement of Jewish Culture and Ideals." The officers of the Association are: Chancellor, Henry Hurwitz, 600 Madison Ave., New York City; President, I. Leo Sharfman, Ann Arbor, Mich.; First Vice-President, Isadore Levin, Cambridge, Mass.; Second Vice-President, Milton D. Sapiro, Berkeley, Cal.; Third Vice-President, Abraham J. Feldman, Cincinnati, O.; Treasurer, N. M. Lyon, Cincinnati, O.; Secretary, Chas. K. Feinberg, New York University, University Heights, New York City; Known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security holders, holding one per cent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages, or other securities: (If there are none, so state.) None. Average number of copies of each issue of this publication sold or distributed, through the mails or otherwise, to paid subscribers during the six months preceding the date shown above. (This information is required from daily newspapers only.)

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Forthcoming issues of The Menorah Journal will contain articles by

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Among other articles to appear in future issues may be named:

Dr. Stephen S. Wise—"The College Man and Jewish Life"

Dr. George Alexander Kohut—"Some Curiosities of Jewish Literature"

Dr. Solomon Solis Cohen—"The Poetry of Jehudah Ha-Levi"

"Phases of Jewish Thinking in American Universities"—A Menorah Prize Essay

Maurice Wertheim—"Americanism and Judaism"

Louis Weinberg—"The Jew in The Industrial and Fine Arts"

Dr. I. L. Kandel of the Carnegie Foundation—"The Development of Jewish Education"

"Jewish Worthies"—A series of portrait sketches of the most notable personalities in the history of Jewish life and thought

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THE MENORAH JOURNAL

VOLUME I JUNE, 1915 NUMBER 3



The Potency of the Jewish Race

BY CHARLES W. ELIOT



For many centuries the Jews have had no country of their own or even national headquarters. They have been scattered among many nations, all more or less unfriendly, and some cruelly oppressive; yet they have retained, under the most adverse circumstances, the capacity to earn their livelihood, to bring up families, and to maintain the great traditions of their race. The main reason for the indestructibility of the Jews is that they early embraced certain invaluable ideals, and have struggled towards them indomitably for thousands of years.

Races and Ideals

The principal difference between races is difference of ideals. Whenever several distinct races come to live side by side on the same territory in the bonds of a peaceful and cooeperative fellowship for all common public purposes, it will be found that they have all reached common political and social ideals, although in regard to many racial attributes and even in regard to religious beliefs they remain distinct.

The assimilation of different races can be brought about only by a gradual acceptance of the same ideals and aspirations. For several centuries this process of assimilation has been going on in many parts of the earth, and is now going on at an accelerated pace, resulting in larger conceptions of nationality and larger political or governmental units.

The Influence of Lofty Ideals on the Jewish Race

The Jewish race affords the strongest instance of the influence on a human stock of lofty ideals, persistently held wherever on the face of the earth a fragment of the race has planted itself. In all generations and in all environments the Jews have succeeded in competition with other races to a remarkable degree. Among a poor population they are less poor than their neighbors; among a free and prosperous population the Jews become richer and more prosperous than the average. Confined in unwholesome Ghettos, they retain to an astonishing degree their health and vitality, helped doubtless by the dietary and sanitary directions given in their ancient Scriptures. Deprived of the right to bear arms in many countries, and, therefore, unable to resist savage attack, they remain inextinguishable. Wherever they become prosperous they develop an extraordinary community feeling, and take care of their own poor or unfortunate. In short, in all generations and in all their various environments they have exhibited, and still exhibit, a remarkable racial tenacity and vigor. It is manifest that this normal success of the race is not due to any especially favorable material conditions, but to the rare strength and significance of its ideals.

"The Noblest of Human Ideals": Jewish Monotheism

What are these ideals? What have they been for thousands of years? The first of the Jewish ideals has been that of one God—the noblest of all human ideals—early attained, and persistently clung to by the whole race. Mohammedan monotheism is noble, and is the main source of the strength of those races which have embraced the religion of Mahomet; but the Mohammedan doctrine of One God arrived thousands of years after the Jewish, and never was so pure. The most significant sentence in the English speech is the first sentence of the Hebrew Bible—"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." That is the first of the Jewish ideals, to which the race has been true in all environments, in weal and in woe; and that belief has delivered it from many sorts of enfeebling and degrading terrors and superstitions.

The Ideal of the Family

Another Jewish ideal which has counted for much in the history of the race is the ideal of the family—pure, honorable, and sacred. The veneration of ancestors, which has been an important part of the religion of China and Japan, is only an undue exaggeration of the Hebrew commandment, "Honor thy father and thy mother." The Jewish race has seen fulfilled the promise which is the last phrase of that commandment, "that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee," although in many lands and not in any land of their own. The organized human society most likely to prove durable or permanent is that which possesses and maintains in theory and practise a lofty ideal of the family. The reverence shown by children toward their parents and the devotion of parents to their children, which prevail in Jewish families, are both more intense than is usual in Christian families. These sentiments yield infinite good in any human society; they produce, and pass on from generation to generation, purity of life, family honor, and a real consecration of the best human affections. That is the second potent Jewish ideal.

The Ethical Ideal of the Ten Commandments

The third effective ideal is the ethical teaching contained in the Ten Commandments, the most compact and yet comprehensive code of morals ever written. These ethical principles have been held before the Jewish race for thousands of years wherever it has lived, in good times and bad, an ideal toward which the race has always struggled, though with frequent lapses. This code contains the institution of the Sabbath Day, which by itself accounts for much of the extraordinary endurance of the race.

The Jews have always been distinguished for their respect for learning and their zeal for education. In the Ghettos of Europe, under the most discouraging conditions, their Rabbis kept alive the ancient learning, and through many centuries gave the elite of the rising generation some mental training, when no instruction was to be had by the masses of mankind. A persecuted race, provided it retains its vitality and elasticity, receives admirable training in loyalty to its ideals. In the case of the Jews this was a loyalty not only to race, but to religion; and religious loyalty is the finest and most sustaining of all loyalties. The religion of the Jews emphasizes an ideal to which the Jewish mind and heart have responded ardently from the earliest times—the ideal of righteousness. Loyalty to this ideal includes loyalty to race, family, religion, and all righteous persons. The Jews believe that righteousness alone exalteth a nation, a family, or a man.

Will the Jewish Race Meet the Test of Liberty?

For two thousand years the Jews have led their daily lives under exposure to bodily harm, injustice, and all sorts of disaster, and under such grievous trials have preserved their ideals. The race is now to be put to another and severer test. In the free countries of Europe and America the Jews enjoy complete political and industrial liberty. They were for centuries excluded from most professions, arts, and industries, and were driven into trade and money-lending. Now all callings are open to them. In the Middle Ages there were only a few directions in which a successful Jew could safely spend his money. Now he can spend it in any direction—wisely and beneficently, or foolishly and ostentatiously. Will the race bear liberty as well as it has borne oppression? The liberty, which is the only atmosphere in which the strongest men and women can develop, often causes the downfall of weak-willed human beings. Rich Jews, like other rich people, are in danger of becoming luxurious—the more so because the race has been cut off from military service, and has not been addicted to out-of-door sports. The worst destroyer of sound family and national life is luxury. If the race is to meet successfully the test of liberty, it will get over its apparent tendency of the moment towards materialism and reliance on the power of money, hold fast to its social and artistic idealism, and press steadily towards its intellectual and religious ideals.



Israel and Medicine

BY SIR WILLIAM OSLER



In estimating the position of Israel in the human values we must remember that the quest for righteousness is Oriental, the quest for knowledge Occidental. With the great prophets of the East—Moses, Isaiah, Mahomet—the word was, "Thus saith the Lord"; with the great seers of the West, from Thales and Aristotle to Archimedes and Lucretius, it was "What says Nature?" They illustrate two opposite views of man and his destiny—in the one he is an "angelus sepultus" in a muddy vesture of decay; in the other, he is the "young light-hearted master" of the world, in it to know it, and by knowing to conquer. Modern civilization is the outcome of these two great movements of the mind of man, who to-day is ruled in heart and head by Israel and by Greece. From the one he has learned responsibility to a Supreme Being, and the love of his neighbor, in which are embraced both the Law and the Prophets; from the other he has gathered the promise of Eden to have dominion over the earth on which he lives. Not that Israel is all heart, nor Greece all head, for in estimating the human value of the two races, intellect and science are found in Jerusalem and beauty and truth at Athens, but in different proportions.

Medicine in the Talmud

It is a striking fact that there is no great Oriental name in science—not one to be put in the same class with Aristotle, with Hippocrates, or with a score of Grecians. We do not go to the Bible for science, though we may go to Moses for instruction in some of the best methods in hygiene. Nor is the Talmud a fountain-head in which men seek inspiration to-day as in the works of Aristotle. I do not forget the saying:

"In uns'rem Talmud kann man Jedes lesen, Und Alles ist schon einmal dagewesen."

With much of intense interest for the physician, and in spite of some brave sayings about the value of science, there is not in it the spirit of Aristotle or of Galen. It is true we find there one of the earliest instances in literature of an accurate diagnosis confirmed post mortem. A sheep of the Rabbi Chabiba had paralysis of the hind legs. Rabbi Jemar diagnosed ischias, or arthritis, but Rabbina, who was called in, said that the disease was in the spinal marrow. To settle the dispute the sheep was killed, and Rabbina's diagnosis was confirmed.

The Role of Jewish Physicians in the Middle Ages

In the early Middle Ages the Jewish physicians played a role of the first importance as preservers and transmitters of ancient knowledge. With the fall of Rome the broad stream of Greek science in western Europe entered the sud of mediaevalism. It filtered through in three streams—one in South Italy, the other in Byzantium, and a third through Islam. At the great school of Salernum in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries, we find important Jewish teachers; Copho II wrote the Anatomia Porci, and Rebecca wrote on fevers and the foetus. Jews were valued councillors at the court of the great Emperor Frederick. With the Byzantine stream the Jews seem to have had little to do, but the broad, clear stream which ran through Islam is dotted thickly with Hebrew names. In the eastern and western Caliphates and in North Africa were men who to-day are the glory of Israel, and bright stars in the medical firmament. Three of these stand out preeminent. The writings of Isaac Judaeus, known in the Middle Ages as Monarcha Medicorum, were prized for more than four centuries. He had a Hippocratic belief in the powers of nature and in the superiority of prevention to cure. He was an optimist and held strongly to the Talmudic precept that the physician who takes nothing is worth nothing. Rabbi ben Ezra was a universal genius and wanderer, whose travels brought him as far as England. His philosophy of life Browning has depicted in the well-known poem, whose beauty of diction and clarity of thought atone for countless muddy folios.

Maimonides: Prince Among Physicians

But the prince among Jewish physicians, whose fame as such has been overshadowed by his reputation as a Talmudist and philosopher, is the Doctor Perplexorum—dux, director, demonstrator, neutrorum dubitantium et errantium!—Moses Maimonides. Cordova boasts of three of the greatest names in the history of Arabian medicine: Avenzoar, Albucasis, and Averroes (Avenzoar is indeed claimed to be a Jew). Great as is the fame of Averroes as the commentator and transmitter of Aristotle to scholastic Europe, his fame is enhanced as the teacher and inspirer of Moses ben Maimon. Exiled from Spain, this great teacher became in Egypt the Thomas Aquinas of Jewry, the conciliator of the Bible and the Talmud with the philosophy of Aristotle. He remains one of Israel's great prophets, and while devoted to theology and philosophy, he was a distinguished and successful practitioner of medicine and the author of many works highly prized for nearly five centuries, some of which are still reprinted. He says pathetically, "Although from my youth Torah was betrothed to me and continues to live by me as the wife of my youth, in whose love I find a constant delight, strange women, whom I took at first into my house as her handmaids, have become her rivals and absorbed part of my time." The spirit of the man is manifest in his famous prayer, one of the precious documents of our profession, worthy to be placed beside the Hippocratic oath. It ends with: "In suffering let me always see only my fellow creature."[A]

Jewish Physicians and Medieval Popes

In the revival of learning in the thirteenth century, which led to the foundation of so many of the universities, Hebrew physicians took a prominent part, particularly in the great schools of Montpelier and of Paris; and for the next two or three centuries in Italy, in France, and in Germany, Hebrew physicians were greatly prized. But too often the tribulations of Israel were their lot. As one reads of the grievous persecutions they suffered, there comes to mind the truth of Zunz' words: "Wenn es eine Stufenleiter von Leiden giebt, so hat Israel die hochste Staffel erstiegen." Their checkered career is well illustrated by the relations with the Popes, some of whom uttered official bulls and fulminations against them, others seem to have had a special fondness for them as body physicians. Paul III was for years in charge of Jacob Montino, a distinguished Jewish physician, who translated extensively from the Arabic and Hebrew into Latin, and his edition of Averroes is dedicated to Pope Leo X. In my library there is a copy of the letter of Pope Gregory XIII, dated March 30th, 1581, and printed in 1584, confirming the decrees of Paul IV and Pius V, which he regrets were by no means held in observance, "but that there are still many among Christian persons who desiring the infirmities of their bodies be cured by illicit means, and especially by the service of Jews and other infidels. . . ." It was at Mantua that a Jewish physician, Abraham Conath, established a printing press, from which the first Hebrew works were issued.

Names of Distinction in Later Centuries

Throughout the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries in France, Germany, and Italy we meet many distinguished names in the profession, and in his Geschichte der Juedischen Aertz Landau pays a very just tribute to their work. Only a few are met with in England. Isaac Abendana, a Spaniard, practised in Oxford and lectured on Hebrew at Magdalen College. We have at the Bodleian Jewish almanacs which lie issued at the end of the seventeenth century, and a great Latin translation of Mishnah. He afterwards migrated to Cambridge. A more important author was Jacob de Castro Sarmento, a Portuguese Jew, who became licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in 1725, and Fellow of the Royal Society in 1730. There is in the Bodleian an interesting broadsheet from the Register of the London Synagogues respecting charges made when his name was proposed at the Royal Society. He contributed many papers to the Philosophical Transactions, and was the author of several works. In the eighteenth century Jean Baptiste de Silva, of a Portuguese Jewish family, became one of the leading physicians of Paris, consulting physician to Louis XV, and the friend of Voltaire, who remarks, "C'etait un de ces medecins que Moliere n'eut ni pu ni ose rendre ridicules." One of the special treasures of my library is a volume of the Henriade superbly bound by Padeloup, and a presentation copy from Voltaire to de Silva, given me when I left Baltimore by my messmates in "The Ship of Fools" (a dining club). Voltaire's inscription reads as follows:

"A Monsieur Silva, Esculape Francois. Recevez cet hommage de votre frere en Apollon. Ce Dieu vous a laisse son plus bel heritage, tous les Dons de l'esprit, tous ceux de la raison, et je n'eus que des Vers, helas, pour mon partage."

The Achievement of Recent Years

In the nineteenth century, with the removal of the vexatious restrictions, the Jew had a chance of reaching his full development, and he has taken a position in the medical profession comparable to that occupied in the palmy Arabian days of Cordova and Bagdad. In Germany particularly, the last half of the century witnessed a remarkable outburst of scientific activity. Traube, who may well be called the father of experimental pathology; Henle, the distinguished anatomist and pathologist; Valentin, the physiologist; Lebert, Remak, Romberg, Ebstein, Henoch, have been among the clinical physicians of the very first rank. Cohnheim was the most brilliant pathologist of his day; to Weigert pathological histology owes an enormous debt, and, to crown all, the man whose ideas have revolutionized modern pathology, Paul Ehrlich, is a Jew. In America Hebrew members of our profession for many years occupied a very prominent position. The father of the profession to-day, a man universally beloved, is Abraham Jacobi, full of years and honors; and the two most brilliant representatives in physiology and pathology, Simon Flexner and Jacques Loeb, carry out the splendid traditions of Traube and Henle.

I have always had a warm affection for my Jewish students, and the friendships I have made with them have been among the special pleasures of my life. Their success has always been a great gratification, as it has been the just reward of earnestness and tenacity of purpose and devotion to high ideals in science; and, I may add, a dedication of themselves as practitioners to everything that could promote the welfare of their patients. In the medical profession the Jews had a long and honorable record, and among no people is all that is best in our science and art more warmly appreciated; none in the community take more to heart the admonition of the son of Sirach, "Give place to the physician, let him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him."



FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote A: I am told by authorities that the attribution of this prayer to Maimonides is doubtful. Where is the original?]



The War from a Jewish Standpoint

BY RICHARD GOTTHEIL



The war in Europe presents problems for the Jews which must be faced no matter what the consequences may be. These problems are of two kinds, due to the fact that we are members of a race that is scattered over the whole earth, and the units of which are to be found in the four corners of the globe. In this way a double set of duties is entailed upon us. On the one hand, we have to take our rightful place as citizens of the different countries in which we live: to accept all the burdens that go with such citizenship, and to partake of the joys and sorrows that are its inevitable accompaniment—in a word, to take the advice of the Rabbis of old and "seek the welfare" of the country in which we live. But this obligation is so self-evident, and the problems raised by it solve themselves so naturally, that they need no further thought. In point of fact, the patriotism of the Jews for the lands in which they live has been demonstrated on so many occasions that only blind ignorance or wilful misrepresentation can call it into question. At the present moment, in all the armies that are at the front, our brethren are doing service even beyond their numerical proportion.

The Toll Paid by the Jew

It is to the second set of problems that I venture to call attention—those Jewish problems that concern ourselves in particular, that deal with our relations to and with our fellow Jews—problems which I am afraid are not always present in our minds. For one reason or another, they are apt to be forgotten, to slip into the background through sheer negligence. Indeed, in many cases we are fain to put them intentionally into a corner and remove them discreetly from sight. It has needed a great world event at this time, as it has in the past, to bring many of us to reason and to a realization of our duty. The titanic struggle in which so many of the nations of the world are engaged has come to remind us also of our position as Jews and to recall to us our relations with the past, our connections with the present, and our hopes for the future. It is indeed true that none of the great political movements that have affected the world have passed by without in some special manner affecting the Jewish people. As we look back through history and allow our thoughts to run down the highway of the ages, we perceive the effects such struggles have had upon the Jew. We think of the time when ancient Babylonia stretched out its arm from the East to gain a foothold on the Mediterranean and to grasp the power of the world. What was the effect upon the Jews? The Babylonian captivity. Many hundreds of years after, Rome—the Babylonia of the West—lunged out toward the East in the same search for universal dominion; and we still observe the Ninth of Ab in commemoration of the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem. Again some centuries passed us by, and we come to the inevitable conflict between Christianity and the rising power of Islam. Who was it but our own Jews who suffered most as the crusading hordes moved through Europe—our own Jews who were driven before them from the Rhine into what at a later time became the great national Ghetto in Poland? And now in this twentieth century, as a people, and in proportion to its numbers, which body of men, women and children is paying the most exacting toll to the forces of destiny? Again it is the Jew.

"The Belgians of All History"

We all have the greatest possible sympathy for the Belgian people and for the Belgian land. Yet how much greater has been the suffering of the Jewish people—the Belgians not of a day but of all history? In Eastern Europe, in Poland, in Galicia and in parts of Russia, at least two or three millions of Jews have suffered from the ravages of a war waged with a bitterness that exceeds all bounds. Invading armies have passed and re-passed over their homes—miserable as they were even in times of peace. False accusations have been launched against them so that they have been regarded as enemies by both sides and treated as such. Thousands have been driven from their homes to congest villages already filled to overflowing or to increase the want and suffering indigenous to towns and cities. An amount of anguish and pain has been caused such as the Jews have never known in all their long tramp through the ages. What have we done, we Jews in America, to assuage even a part of this pain? What measures have we in view, when once the war shall be over, to regain for these people the possibility of living, to bring back for them a little of that which they have lost through no fault of their own and in no cause which is theirs? In most cases the only right permitted to them is the right to suffer, and they must in addition pay the price of that suffering. As we think of all these circumstances, is it not proper and meet that we should ponder the whole situation in which we Jews find ourselves today?

I believe that it is eminently the moment to do so. We refuse to believe that the great waste of human life and energy now going on in Europe is a waste pure and simple. We refuse to believe that some purification is not to result from the fire through which mankind is passing, and that some sanity in handling human affairs is not to follow the evident insanity with which we are now confronted. Something a little more stable because a little more reasonable must appear at the end to replace the inconstancy and unrest which have up to now characterized the relations of peoples to each other. And as we hope this for the world at large, we are hopeful too that full attention will be given to those problems which concern the Jews specifically. I wish then to indicate the chief among these problems, in order that we may ourselves see clearly the road that must be taken.

The Prospect in Russia and Poland

First and foremost, of course, rank the questions that concern the Jews in Russia. Quite apart from any consideration of the general problems affecting that country, the case of the Jews in Russia and Poland demands a settlement that shall make existence bearable for them, and which at the same time shall not run counter to the real and vital interests of the Russian people. Nay more; such existence must not only be bearable. It must be of a kind that will place the Jews upon a level with the other inhabitants of the Empire and will give them the necessary opportunity to develop whatever talents or capabilities they possess. It is not for us to prescribe in what manner and by what means this shall be accomplished; and I use the word "must" not in the sense that any compulsion is to be applied to Russia in this respect, but rather as an expression of the certainty that the trial through which the Czar's land is now passing is of such a kind as to purge her necessarily of all traces of national and religious intolerance. This feeling cannot be expressed in better words than those used by M. Bourtzeff, the well-known reactionary, when he said, "We are convinced that after this war there will no longer be any room for political reaction and Russia will be associated with the existing group of cultured and civilized countries."

Proof that such feelings are making their way among the most intelligent portion of the Russian population is shown by the remarkable document put forth some weeks ago over the signatures of noted Christian professors, litterateurs, and members of the Duma, in which the plea is made for the removal of all restrictions that at present shackle the Jews. "Let us understand," they say, "that the welfare and the power of Russia are inseparably bound up with the welfare and liberties of all the nationalities that constitute the whole Empire. Let us then conceive this truth. Let us act in accordance with our intelligence and our conscience, and then we are sure that the disappearance of all kinds of persecution of the Jews and their complete emancipation, so as to be our equals in all rights of citizenship, will form one of the conditions of a real constructive imperial policy." And we are the more persuaded that these views will prevail when we remember that Russia has been brought into closer contact with just those nations of Europe where Jewish emancipation has been most perfect and has brought forth the best fruits. It is unthinkable that these nations should fail to put their influence on the side of Jewish freedom in Russia when European accounts are finally balanced.[B]

The Broken Faith of Roumania

In the second place, any regulation of the Jewish status in Europe must of necessity include Roumania. The injustice of the Government's attitude in that country is even more pronounced than it is in Russia. For Roumania is bound to a certain course by a "scrap of paper." At the Berlin Congress of 1878, one of the conditions upon which statehood was granted to Roumania was that the rights of free citizenship should be conferred upon the Jewish inhabitants in the principality—who, it may be remarked in passing, were among the oldest residents there. Roumania gave her solemn promise to carry out this condition; but by political subterfuge of the most brazen kind she has circumvented the whole spirit of the demand. The Roumanian Chamber passed a law to the effect that only Jews who had been naturalized by it were entitled to citizenship; and as the Chamber refused to naturalize more than a handful each year, the provisions of the Berlin Treaty have been as good as void. When quite recently—in 1913—during the progress of the last Balkan War and prior to the intervention of Roumania, the Roumanian Jews volunteered to serve in large numbers, the proposal was brought forward to grant the rights of citizenship to all Jews who had entered the army. Yet this proposal was voted down; and the condition of the Jews has remained as it was prior to 1878. They are inhabitants in a country, subject to its laws, liable to all duties placed upon citizens—but they are themselves prohibited from becoming citizens. It is intolerable that such a condition should be allowed to continue; and if right is to take the place of might in the inevitable re-arrangement of the community of European nations, the status of the Roumanian Jews must be one of the Jewish problems to be solved.

The Hope of Regaining Palestine

There is a third Jewish problem the importance of which perhaps even transcends the two just mentioned; transcends because of the interest that attaches to it and because of its vital import to every Jew the world over. I refer to the problem of Palestine, which is wrapt up with the very existence of the Jews and which symbolizes the hopes that have been nurtured throughout the centuries. We know that the Jew in his inevitable march westward has kept his face turned towards the East; that in prayer and in meditation his gaze has rested upon that country which enshrined at one and the same time his origin and his future aspirations. It is true that up to within some forty years that aspiration remained in large part a pious wish; and that though it was cherished as coming to realization "quickly and in our day," very few attempts were put through to arm the Almighty with human effort. At best, God-fearing and pious Jews removed to Palestine, either to immerse themselves there in study and contemplation, or to end their days in the odor of sanctity.

But the last twenty-five years have witnessed a conscious effort to make of Palestine a rallying point for the Jewish people, a place where Jewish life may be lived to its fullest extent and which may serve as a beacon light to all parts of the Diaspora. Many a waste place has been made to blossom again; and much of the culture and learning acquired by the Jews in the long centuries of toil and effort has been made available to revivify the Land of Promise. With infinite pains and untold sacrifices the Jewish pioneers went forward in their peaceful effort to regain the soil of their forefathers. Colonies have been founded there; primary schools, high schools and technical institutions have been established, and many of the forces have been started that make the foundation for a permanent settlement. This conscious effort can not have been put forth in vain. Palestine represents the goal of our endeavor. And any settlement after the war that has in view the general problems involved will be forced to take cognizance of the just hopes that we Jews place in the future of that country and the just rights that the Jewish people believe they possess and have acquired there. The form in which such rights shall be expressed is not a matter for discussion at present. The fact alone is of importance. In the past the world has applauded the fight made by the Poles for their national existence; it has followed with interest the Greek War of Independence, the Italian striving for unity, the Irish endeavors for racial autonomy, and the Alsatian effort after independent expression. It must and will appreciate and esteem the attempt made by the Jews to re-fashion their anomalous status and to re-create the statehood that they lost nearly two thousand years ago.

The Collapse of Principles Held Sacred by the Jews

Our concern, however, in the present world conflict goes further than our own immediate affairs, and meets those interests which we have in common with the rest of humankind. Much as we deplore the wanton destruction of property, much as we bewail the reckless loss of life, we mourn especially the diminution of ethical standards and the perversion of our whole outlook on life. For this means the lapse of much for which our own teachers have stood, the forfeit of many a principle which has been dear to the Jewish heart. Let me touch lightly upon three points out of the many that come to mind.

First of all, what we must deplore most is the defiance to law and to its reign which has become so marked a characteristic during the present war. The agreements arrived at in conventions, the bases of treaties, the binding character of compacts, and the sanctity of engagements—all seem to have been thrown into one melting pot. The mere fact that the expression "a scrap of paper" has become a household word, bandied about by orators and scribblers, shows the distance we have descended into the abyss. The whole structure of our international relations seems to have fallen to the ground and the labored work of centuries to have been undone in a few months. Now, the Jews have been from the earliest times a people that have laid the greatest possible stress upon the rule of law; so much so, that their own laws were supposed to have divine sanction. In olden Jewish times everything was regulated by law—man's relation to his fellow men, to the state, and to God; to such a degree that we have been blamed often for being a law-ridden people. We cannot, therefore, remain oblivious to the fact that the sanctity of law has now been rudely called into question and its authority greatly weakened. As Jews we must be deeply concerned in assisting the European world back to a full consciousness of the majesty and eminence of the rule of law.

But more than that, it was part of our earliest teaching that "thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." What clouds of hatred have not been blown from one line of trenches to the other! What volumes of spleen have not been sent from one country to the other! In countless speeches, in newspapers and in books, the doctrines of dislike, of animosity, of deepest malice have been preached. Men have been taught to look upon certain neighbors as born enemies, to see in those who do not speak their own tongue not only a stranger but an enemy. Back of the soldiers under arms, back of the cannons with their deadly missiles, stand millions of loathing men and women shooting darts of odium that reach further than any shell and that are more poisonous than any gas. When shall we be able once again to preach the beautiful teaching of the prophet, "Have we not all one Father; hath not one God created us all?"

And lastly, we must bear in mind that the Jews have been opposed from of old to the rule and reign of might as represented by the God of War. In a syllabus on the history of the Peace Movement just published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, it is passing strange to find that the Old Testament is entirely overlooked and that from the first point, "The Cosmopolitan Ideal among the Greek Philosophers," the jump is made at once to the second, "Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace." And yet we know that in the outlook of our greatest teachers and philosophers the vision of peace loomed large and powerful. "Ye shall not teach war any more," said one of our greatest. And for another the true sign of his prophetic mission is that he preached peace. How sadly these teachings have been belied in the present war we know only too well.

Is War Necessary and Good?

In many circles it has been held that development is possible for the human race only with the concomitance of war. What wonder—when modern teachers have preached just such a necessity? Even so great a religious leader as Luther said, "War is a business divine in itself, and is as necessary as eating or drinking or any other work." Should we then wonder that a historian such as von Treitschke has added, "War is the last revealer of power. God will see to it that war always recurs as a drastic medicine for the human race,"—or that another historian, Delbrueck, should have said, "What beauty was to the Greek, holiness to the Hebrew, government to the Romans; what liberty is to the Englishman, war is to the Prussian." Nietzsche, one of the greatest of modern apostles, has based many of his theories upon "a violent repudiation of any faith or tradition which recognizes a power of right and justice lying beyond our impulsive nature; an identification of self-restraint with degeneracy and of self-assertion with health; a search for happiness in the conquest of others rather than in self-conquest; a substitution of the Will to Power for the Darwinian Will to Live, with the consequent intensification of the unconscious and instinctive struggle for existence into a battle for conscious mastery; and a sharpening of the competition of life, with its self-observed rules of fair play or its traditionally imposed limitations, into a glorification of war as the supreme test of strength, obtaining its justification in success."

In a very remarkable article which appeared in the Nineteenth Century for last September, written by a man evidently most religiously minded, appears the following: "Is the heart of England still strong to bear and to resolve and to endure? How shall we know? By the test? What test? That which God has given for the trial of people—the test of war. The real court, the only court in which this case can and will be tried, is the court of God. This twentieth century will see that trial, and whichever people shall have in it the greater soul of righteousness will be the victor. The discovery that Christianity is incompatible with the military spirit is made only among decaying people. While the nation is still vigorous, while its population is expanding, while the blood in its veins is strong, then on this hope no scruples are felt. But when its energies begin to wither, when self-indulgence takes the place of self-sacrifice, when its sons and daughters become degenerate, then it is that a spurious and bastard humanitarianism masquerading as religion declares war to be an anachronism and a barbaric sin."

The Jewish Answer

The Jewish attitude in regard to this great problem before the world can be dealt with in a very few words. These words have already been given to us in the twentieth chapter of Exodus: "If thou wilt make an altar, thou shalt not wave thy sword over it; for if thou wavest thy sword over it thou hast polluted it." It has been emphasized by the prophet Jeremiah when he said, "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might. Let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him that glorieth, glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, that I am the Lord who exerciseth loving kindness, judgment and righteousness on the earth." To this I will add only one single word of the Rabbis: "The whole Torah exists solely for the sake of the ways of peace." This ideal of peace has been the guiding star of Israel for which the Jew has prayed morning, noon and night, and I trust that the young men of the Menorah will be true to that which the Menorah typifies, and will assist in the spreading of its light by upholding the reign of law, the reign of love, and the reign of peace.



FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote B: In the last number of THE MENORAH JOURNAL, Mr. Jacob H. Schiff ventured to suggest the reverse influence, and to intimate that the association of England with Russia was having an adverse effect upon the Jews in England. While Mr. Schiff does not tell us upon what evidence he bases his views, I venture to guess that it consists largely of the mistrust and ill-will caused in England by a small coterie of German-born bankers and their following. But Mr. Schiff must know that this ill-will is in no way connected with the fact that the men referred to are members of the Jewish race. Most of them have never taken the least interest in Jewish affairs, some even have ostentatiously kept themselves quite apart from any connection with them. And what is more, the feeling against them is shared by Jews as well as by non-Jews in England.

Perhaps more serious still is Mr. Schiff's presentment concerning German anti-Semitism. To speak simply of "a certain anti-Semitic tendency in Germany" is to coat the truth with so much honey as almost to reverse its meaning. Anti-Semitism in Germany, and especially in Prussia, has kept the Jews far from any positions of importance in university life, on the bench, and in all state and military affairs. And to add that the war "will crush out most of this anti-Semitic tendency" is to fly in the very face of well-ascertained and authenticated facts of very recent occurrence. In Harper's Weekly for February 6th of this year (p. 122), a series of such facts is adduced. Nor can Mr. Schiff forget that forced conversion away from the Jewish faith and communion has nowhere taken on the dangerous proportions it has in the Fatherland. Russia, it is true, has martyred many Jewish bodies; German "Kultur" has quenched too many Jewish souls. History will have to decide which has done the greater hurt to the Jewish cause.]



O Sweet Anemones

BY JESSIE E. SAMPTER

This Song is one of a series put into the mouth of a nationalist Pharisee of Jerusalem living through the times of the coming of Jesus to Jerusalem and the later development or perversion of Jesus' ideals by Paul.

O sweet anemones on Sharon's plain, Light dancing seraphim of sun and rain, Was he not one of us, was he not ours? And yet he saved not us, O crimson flowers!

As stars that bloom in heaven, full-bloom and still, As native stags that leap from hill to hill, As you, dear blossom-stars, on native plains, So planted here, with God, our home remains.

I, too, would perish here, where he has died, But felled by horse and spear, not crucified; I, man of peace, would pour, O Rock of God, My freedom or my blood on Zion's sod.

When pagans sweep thy fields with withering blast, My heart is sanctified to death at last; Its taste is honey-sweet within my mouth, For we that drink with God can dread no drouth.

O sweet anemones on Sharon's plain, A spring shall come for us, to bloom again,— To God a day, to us a thousand years,— Who still remembers, lives, refreshed with tears.