JEWISH LITERATURE

AND OTHER ESSAYS

JEWISH LITERATURE

AND

OTHER ESSAYS

BY

GUSTAV KARPELES

PHILADELPHIA THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA 1895

Copyright 1895, byTHE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA

Press ofThe Friedenwald Co. Baltimore

PREFACE

The following essays were delivered during the last ten years, in theform of addresses, before the largest associations in the great citiesof Germany. Each one is a dear and precious possession to me. As I oncemore pass them in review, reminiscences fill my mind of solemn occasionsand impressive scenes, of excellent men and charming women. I feel asthough I were sending the best beloved children of my fancy out into theworld, and sadness seizes me when I realize that they no longer belongto me alone--that they have become the property of strangers. The livingword falling upon the ear of the listener is one thing; quite anotherthe word staring from the cold, printed page. Will my thoughts beaccorded the same friendly welcome that greeted them when first theywere uttered?

I venture to hope that they may be kindly received; for these addresseswere born of devoted love to Judaism. The consciousness that Israel ischarged with a great historical mission, not yet accomplished, usheredthem into existence. Truth and sincerity stood sponsor to every word. Isit presumptuous, then, to hope that they may find favor in the NewWorld? Brethren of my faith live there as here; our ancient watchword, "Sh'ma Yisrael, " resounds in their synagogues as in ours; the oldblood-stained flag, with its sublime inscription, "The Lord is mybanner!" floats over them; and Jewish hearts in America are loyal likeours, and sustained by steadfast faith in the Messianic time when ourhopes and ideals, our aims and dreams, will be realized. There is butone Judaism the world over, by the Jordan and the Tagus as by theVistula and the Mississippi. God bless and protect it, and lead it tothe goal of its glorious future!

To all Jewish hearts beyond the ocean, in free America, fraternalgreetings!

GUSTAV KARPELES

BERLIN, Pesach 5652/1892. 

CONTENTS

A GLANCE AT JEWISH LITERATURE

THE TALMUD

THE JEW IN THE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION

WOMEN IN JEWISH LITERATURE

MOSES MAIMONIDES

JEWISH TROUBADOURS AND MINNESINGERS

HUMOR AND LOVE IN JEWISH POETRY

THE JEWISH STAGE

THE JEW'S QUEST IN AFRICA

A JEWISH KING IN POLAND

JEWISH SOCIETY IN THE TIME OF MENDELSSOHN

LEOPOLD ZUNZ

HEINRICH HEINE AND JUDAISM

THE MUSIC OF THE SYNAGOGUE

A GLANCE AT JEWISH LITERATURE

In a well-known passage of the _Romanzero_, rebuking Jewish women fortheir ignorance of the magnificent golden age of their nation's poetry, Heine used unmeasured terms of condemnation. He was too severe, for thesources from which he drew his own information were of a purelyscientific character, necessarily unintelligible to the ordinary reader. The first truly popular presentation of the whole of Jewish literaturewas made only a few years ago, and could not have existed in Heine'stime, as the most valuable treasures of that literature, a veritableHebrew Pompeii, have been unearthed from the mould and rubbish of thelibraries within this century. Investigations of the history of Jewishliterature have been possible, then, only during the last fifty years. 

But in the course of this half-century, conscientious research has soactively been prosecuted that we can now gain at least a bird's-eye viewof the whole course of our literature. Some stretches still lie inshadow, and it is not astonishing that eminent scholars continue tomaintain that "there is no such thing as an organic history, a logicaldevelopment, of the gigantic neo-Hebraic literature"; while such as areacquainted with the results of late research at best concede thatHebrew literature has been permitted to garner a "tender aftermath. "Both verdicts are untrue and unfair. Jewish literature has developedorganically, and in the course of its evolution it has had itsspring-tide as well as its season of decay, this again followed byvigorous rejuvenescence. 

Such opinions are part and parcel of the vicissitudes of our literature, in themselves sufficient matter for an interesting book. Strange itcertainly is that a people without a home, without a land, living underrepression and persecution, could produce so great a literature;stranger still, that it should at first have been preserved anddisseminated, then forgotten, or treated with the disdain of prejudice, and finally roused from torpid slumber into robust life by the breath ofthe modern era. In the neighborhood of twenty-two thousand works areknown to us now. Fifty years ago bibliographers were ignorant of theexistence of half of these, and in the libraries of Italy, England, andGermany an untold number awaits resurrection. 

In fact, our literature has not yet been given a name that recommendsitself to universal acceptance. Some have called it "RabbinicalLiterature, " because during the middle ages every Jew of learning borethe title Rabbi; others, "Neo-Hebraic"; and a third party considers itpurely theological. These names are all inadequate. Perhaps the only onesufficiently comprehensive is "Jewish Literature. " That embraces, as itshould, the aggregate of writings produced by Jews from the earliestdays of their history up to the present time, regardless of form, oflanguage, and, in the middle ages at least, of subject-matter. 

With this definition in mind, we are able to sketch the whole course ofour literature, though in the frame of an essay only in outline. Weshall learn, as Leopold Zunz, the Humboldt of Jewish science, well says, that it is "intimately bound up with the culture of the ancient world, with the origin and development of Christianity, and with the scientificendeavors of the middle ages. Inasmuch as it shares the intellectualaspirations of the past and the present, their conflicts and theirreverses, it is supplementary to general literature. Its peculiarfeatures, themselves falling under universal laws, are in turn helpfulin the interpretation of general characteristics. If the aggregateresults of mankind's intellectual activity can be likened unto a sea, Jewish literature is one of the tributaries that feed it. Like otherliteratures and like literature in general, it reveals to the studentwhat noble ideals the soul of man has cherished, and striven to realize, and discloses the varied achievements of man's intellectual powers. Ifwe of to-day are the witnesses and the offspring of an eternal, creativeprinciple, then, in turn, the present is but the beginning of a future, that is, the translation of knowledge into life. Spiritual idealsconsciously held by any portion of mankind lend freedom to thought, grace to feeling, and by sailing up this one stream we may reach thefountain-head whence have emanated all spiritual forces, and aboutwhich, as a fixed pole, all spiritual currents eddy. "[1]

The cornerstone of this Jewish literature is the Bible, or what we callOld Testament literature--the oldest and at the same time the mostimportant of Jewish writings. It extends over the period ending with thesecond century before the common era; is written, for the most part, inHebrew, and is the clearest and the most faithful reflection of theoriginal characteristics of the Jewish people. This biblical literaturehas engaged the closest attention of all nations and every age. Untilthe seventeenth century, biblical science was purely dogmatic, and onlysince Herder pointed the way have its æsthetic elements been dwelt uponalong with, often in defiance of, dogmatic considerations. Up to thistime, Ernest Meier and Theodor Nöldeke have been the only ones to treatof the Old Testament with reference to its place in the history ofliterature. 

Despite the dogmatic air clinging to the critical introductions to thestudy of the Old Testament, their authors have not shrunk from treatingthe book sacred to two religions with childish arbitrariness. Since thedays of Spinoza's essay at rationalistic explanation, Bible criticismhas been the wrestling-ground of the most extravagant exegesis, of boldhypotheses, and hazardous conjectures. No Latin or Greek classic hasbeen so ruthlessly attacked and dissected; no mediæval poetry soarbitrarily interpreted. As a natural consequence, the æstheticelements were more and more pushed into the background. Only recentlyhave we begun to ridicule this craze for hypotheses, and returned tomore sober methods of inquiry. Bible criticism reached the climax ofabsurdity, and the scorn was just which greeted one of the mostimportant works of the critical school, Hitzig's "Explanation of thePsalms. " A reviewer said: "We may entertain the fond hope that, in asecond edition of this clever writer's commentary, he will be in theenviable position to tell us the day and the hour when each psalm wascomposed. "

The reaction began a few years ago with the recognition of theinadequacy of Astruc's document hypothesis, until then the creed of allBible critics. Astruc, a celebrated French physician, in 1753 advancedthe theory that the Pentateuch--the five books of Moses--consists of twoparallel documents, called respectively Yahvistic and Elohistic, fromthe name applied to God in each. On this basis, German science after himraised a superstructure. No date was deemed too late to be assigned tothe composition of the Pentateuch. If the historian Flavius Josephus hadnot existed, and if Jesus had not spoken of "the Law" and "theprophets, " and of the things "which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, " critics would have beendisposed to transfer the redaction of the Bible to some period of theChristian era. So wide is the divergence of opinions on the subjectthat two learned critics, Ewald and Hitzig, differ in the date assignedto a certain biblical passage by no less than a thousand years!

Bible archæology, Bible exegesis, and discussions of grammaticalniceties, were confounded with the history of biblical literature, andnaturally it was the latter that suffered by the lack ofdifferentiation. Orthodoxy assumed a purely divine origin for the Bible, while sceptics treated the holy book with greater levity than they woulddare display in criticising a modern novel. The one party raised a hueand cry when Moses was spoken of as the first author; the otherdiscovered "obscene, rude, even cannibalistic traits"[2] in the sublimenarratives of the Bible. It should be the task of coming generations, successors by one remove of credulous Bible lovers, and immediate heirsof thorough-going rationalists, to reconcile and fuse in a higherconception of the Bible the two divergent theories of its purely divineand its purely human origin. Unfortunately, it must be admitted thatErnest Meier is right, when he says, in his "History of the NationalPoetry of the Hebrews, " that this task wholly belongs to the future; atpresent it is an unsolved problem. 

The æsthetic is the only proper point of view for a full recognition ofthe value of biblical literature. It certainly does not rob the sacredScriptures, the perennial source of spiritual comfort, of their exaltedcharacter and divine worth to assume that legend, myth, and historyhave combined to produce the perfect harmony which is their imperishabledistinction. The peasant dwelling on inaccessible mountain-heights, nextto the record of Abraham's shepherd life, inscribes the main events ofhis own career, the anniversary dates sacred to his family. The youngcount among their first impressions that of "the brown folio, " and morevividly than all else remember

 "The maidens fair and true, The sages and the heroes bold, Whose tale by seers inspired In our Book of books is told. 

 The simple life and faith Of patriarchs of ancient day Like angels hover near, And guard, and lead them on the way. "[3]

Above all, a whole nation has for centuries been living with, and onlyby virtue of, this book. Surely this is abundant testimony to theundying value of the great work, in which the simplest shepherd talesand the naïvest legends, profound moral saws and magnificent images, theideals of a Messianic future and the purest, the most humane conceptionof life, alternate with sublime descriptions of nature and the sweetstrains of love-poems, with national songs breathing hope, or tremblingwith anguish, and with the dull tones of despairing pessimism and thedivinely inspired hymns of an exalted theodicy--all blending to formwhat the reverential love of men has named the Book of books. 

It was natural that a book of this kind should become the basis of agreat literature. Whatever was produced in later times had to submit tobe judged by its exalted standard. It became the rule of conduct, theprophetic mirror reflecting the future work of a nation whose fate wasinextricably bound up with its own. It is not known how and when thebiblical scriptures were welded into one book, a holy canon, but it isprobably correct to assume that it was done by the _Soferim_, theScribes, between 200 and 150 B. C. E. At all events, it is certain thatthe three divisions of the Bible--the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and themiscellaneous writings--were contained in the Greek version, theSeptuagint, so called from the seventy or seventy-two Alexandrianssupposed to have done the work of translation under PtolemyPhiladelphus. 

The Greek translation of the Bible marks the beginning of the secondperiod of Jewish literature, the Judæo-Hellenic. Hebrew ceased to be thelanguage of the people; it was thenceforth used only by scholars and indivine worship. Jewish for the first time met Greek intellect. Shem andJapheth embraced fraternally. "But even while the teachings of Hellaswere pushing their way into subjugated Palestine, seducing Jewishphilosophy to apostasy, and seeking, by main force, to introducepaganism, the Greek philosophers themselves stood awed by the majestyand power of the Jewish prophets. Swords and words entered the lists aschampions of Judaism. The vernacular Aramæan, having suffered the Greekto put its impress upon many of its substantives, refused to yield tothe influence of the Greek verb, and, in the end, Hebrew truth, in theguise of the teachings of Jesus, undermined the proud structure of theheathen. " This is a most excellent characterization of that literaryperiod, which lasted about three centuries, ending between 100 and 150C. E. Its influence upon Jewish literature can scarcely be said to havebeen enduring. To it belong all the apocryphal writings which, originally composed in the Greek language, were for that reason notincorporated into the Holy Canon. The centre of intellectual life was nolonger in Palestine, but at Alexandria in Egypt, where three hundredthousand Jews were then living, and thus this literature came to becalled Judæo-Alexandrian. It includes among its writers the last of theNeoplatonists, particularly Philo, the originator of the allegoricalinterpretation of the Bible and of a Jewish philosophy of religion;Aristeas, and pseudo-Phokylides. There were also Jewish _littérateurs_:the dramatist Ezekielos; Jason; Philo the Elder; Aristobulus, thepopularizer of the Aristotelian philosophy; Eupolemos, the historian;and probably the Jewish Sybil, who had to have recourse to the oracularmanner of the pagans to proclaim the truths of Judaism, and to Greekfigures of speech for her apocalyptic visions, which foretold, inbiblical phrase and with prophetic ardor, the future of Israel and ofthe nations in contact with it. 

Meanwhile the word of the Bible was steadily gaining importance inPalestine. To search into and expound the sacred text had become theinheritance of the congregation of Jacob, of those that had not lent earto the siren notes of Hellenism. Midrash, as the investigations of thecommentators were called, by and by divided into two streams--Halacha, which establishes and systematizes the statutes of the Law, and Haggada, which uses the sacred texts for homiletic, historical, ethical, andpedagogic discussions. The latter is the poetic, the former, thelegislative, element in the Talmudic writings, whose composition, extending over a thousand years, constitutes the third, the mostmomentous, period of Jewish literature. Of course, none of these periodscan be so sharply defined as a rapid survey might lead one to suppose. For instance, on the threshold of this third epoch stands the figure ofFlavius Josephus, the famous Jewish historian, who, at once anenthusiastic Jew and a friend of the Romans, writes the story of hisnation in the Greek language--a character as peculiar as his age, which, listening to the mocking laughter of a Lucian, saw Olympus overthrownand its gods dethroned, the Temple at Jerusalem pass away in flame andsmoke, and the new doctrine of the son of the carpenter at Nazarethbegin its victorious course. 

By the side of this Janus-faced historian, the heroes of the Talmudstand enveloped in glory. We meet with men like Hillel and Shammaï, Jochanan ben Zakkaï, Gamaliel, Joshua ben Chananya, the famous Akiba, and later on Yehuda the Prince, friend of the imperial philosopherMarcus Aurelius, and compiler of the Mishna, the authoritative code oflaws superseding all other collections. Then there are the fabulistMeïr; Simon ben Yochaï, falsely accused of the authorship of themystical Kabbala; Chiya; Rab; Samuel, equally famous as a physician anda rabbi; Jochanan, the supposed compiler of the Jerusalem Talmud; andAshi and Abina, the former probably the arranger of the BabylonianTalmud. This latter Talmud, the one invested with authority among Jews, by reason of its varying fortunes, is the most marvellous literarymonument extant. Never has book been so hated and so persecuted, somisjudged and so despised, on the other hand, so prized and so honored, and, above all, so imperfectly understood, as this very Talmud. 

For the Jews and their literature it has had untold significance. Thatthe Talmud has been the conservator of Judaism is an irrefutablestatement. It is true that the study of the Talmud unduly absorbed thegreat intellectual force of its adherents, and brought about a somewhatone-sided mental development in the Jews; but it also is true, as awriter says, [4] that "whenever in troublous times scientific inquiry waslaid low; whenever, for any reason, the Jew was excluded fromparticipation in public life, the study of the Talmud maintained theelasticity and the vigor of the Jewish mind, and rescued the Jew fromsterile mysticism and spiritual apathy. The Talmud, as a rule, has beeninimical to mysticism, and the most brilliant Talmudists, in propitiousdays, have achieved distinguished success in secular science. The Jewsurvived ages of bitterness, all the while clinging loyally to his faithin the midst of hostility, and the first ray of light that penetratedthe walls of the Ghetto found him ready to take part in the intellectualwork of his time. This admirable elasticity of mind he owes, first andforemost, to the study of the Talmud. "

From this much abused Talmud, as from its contemporary the Midrash inthe restricted sense, sprouted forth the blossoms of the Haggada--thatHaggada

 "Where the beauteous, ancient sagas, Angel legends fraught with meaning, Martyrs' silent sacrifices, Festal songs and wisdom's sayings, Trope and allegoric fancies-- All, howe'er by faith's triumphant Glow pervaded--where they gleaming, Glist'ning, well in strength exhaustless. 

 And the boyish heart responsive Drinks the wild, fantastic sweetness, Greets the woful, wondrous anguish, Yields to grewsome charm of myst'ry, Hid in blessed worlds of fable. Overawed it hearkens solemn To that sacred revelation Mortal man hath poetry called. "[5]

A story from the Midrash charmingly characterizes the relation betweenHalacha and Haggada. Two rabbis, Chiya bar Abba, a Halachist, andAbbahu, a Haggadist, happened to be lecturing in the same town. Abbahu, the Haggadist, was always listened to by great crowds, while Chiya, withhis Halacha, stood practically deserted. The Haggadist comforted thedisappointed teacher with a parable. "Let us suppose two merchants, " hesaid, "to come to town, and offer wares for sale. The one has pearls andprecious gems to display, the other, cheap finery, gilt chains, rings, and gaudy ribbons. About whose booth, think you, does the crowdpress?--Formerly, when the struggle for existence was not fierce andinevitable, men had leisure and desire for the profound teachings of theLaw; now they need the cheering words of consolation and hope. "

For more than a thousand years this nameless spirit of national poesywas abroad, and produced manifold works, which, in the course of time, were gathered together into comprehensive collections, variously namedMidrash Rabba, Pesikta, Tanchuma, etc. Their compilation was begun inabout 700 C. E. , that is, soon after the close of the Talmud, in thetransition period from the third epoch of Jewish literature to thefourth, the golden age, which lasted from the ninth to the fifteenthcentury, and, according to the law of human products, shows a season ofgrowth, blossom, and decay. 

The scene of action during this period was western Asia, northernAfrica, sometimes Italy and France, but chiefly Spain, where Arabicculture, destined to influence Jewish thought to an incalculable degree, was at that time at its zenith. "A second time the Jews were drawn intothe vortex of a foreign civilization, and two hundred years afterMohammed, Jews in Kairwan and Bagdad were speaking the same language, Arabic. A language once again became the mediatrix between Jewish andgeneral literature, and the best minds of the two races, by means of thelanguage, reciprocally influenced each other. Jews, as they once hadwritten Greek for their brethren, now wrote Arabic; and, as inHellenistic times, the civilization of the dominant race, both in itsoriginal features and in its adaptations from foreign sources, wasreflected in that of the Jews. " It would be interesting to analyze thisimportant process of assimilation, but we can concern ourselves onlywith the works of the Jewish intellect. Again we meet, at the thresholdof the period, a characteristic figure, the thinker Sa'adia, rankinghigh as author and religious philosopher, known also as a grammarian anda poet. He is followed by Sherira, to whom we owe the beginnings of ahistory of Talmudic literature, and his son Haï Gaon, a strictlyorthodox teacher of the Law. In their wake come troops of physicians, theologians, lexicographers, Talmudists, and grammarians. Great is thecircle of our national literature: it embraces theology, philosophy, exegesis, grammar, poetry, and jurisprudence, yea, even astronomy andchronology, mathematics and medicine. But these widely varying subjectsconstitute only one class, inasmuch as they all are infused with thespirit of Judaism, and subordinate themselves to its demands. A mentionof the prominent actors would turn this whole essay into a dry list ofnames. Therefore it is better for us merely to sketch the period inoutline, dwelling only on its greatest poets and philosophers, themoulders of its character. 

The opinion is current that the Semitic race lacks the philosophicfaculty. Yet it cannot be denied that Jews were the first to carry Greekphilosophy to Europe, teaching and developing it there before itsdissemination by celebrated Arabs. In their zeal to harmonize philosophywith their religion, and in the lesser endeavor to defend traditionalJudaism against the polemic attacks of a new sect, the Karaites, theyinvested the Aristotelian system with peculiar features, making it, asit were, their national philosophy. At all events, it must beuniversally accepted that the Jews share with the Arabs the merit "ofhaving cherished the study of philosophy during centuries of barbarism, and of having for a long time exerted a civilizing influence uponEurope. "

The meagre achievements of the Jews in the departments of history andhistory of literature do not justify the conclusion that they arewanting in historic perception. The lack of writings on these subjectsis traceable to the sufferings and persecutions that have marked theirpathway. Before their chroniclers had time to record past afflictions, new sorrows and troubles broke in upon them. In the middle ages, thehistory of Jewish literature is the entire history of the Jewish people, its course outlined by blood and watered by rivers of tears, at whosesource the genius of Jewish poetry sits lamenting. "The Orient dwells anexile in the Occident, " Franz Delitzsch, the first alien to give lovingstudy to this literature, poetically says, "and its tears of longing forhome are the fountain-head of Jewish poetry. "[6]

That poetry reached its perfection in the works of the celebrated trio, Solomon Gabirol, Yehuda Halevi, and Moses ben Ezra. Their dazzlingtriumphs had been heralded by the more modest achievements of Abitur, writing Hebrew, and Adia and the poetess Xemona (Kasmune) using Arabic, to sing the praise of God and lament the woes of Israel. 

The predominant, but not exclusive, characteristic of Jewish poetry isits religious strain. Great thinkers, men equipped with philosophictraining, and at the same time endowed with poetic gifts, havecontributed to the huge volume of synagogue poetry, whose subjects arepraise of the Lord and regret for Zion. The sorrow for our lostfatherland has never taken on more glowing colors, never been expressedin fuller tones than in this poetry. As ancient Hebrew poetry flowed inthe two streams of prophecy and psalmody, so the Jewish poetry of themiddle ages was divided into _Piut_ and _Selicha_. Songs of hope anddespair, cries of revenge, exhortations to peace among men, elegies onevery single persecution, and laments for Zion, follow each other inkaleidoscopic succession. Unfortunately, there never was lack ofhistoric matter for this poetry to elaborate. To furnish that was thewell-accomplished task of rulers and priests in the middle ages, alike"in the realm of the Islamic king of kings and in that of the apostolicservant of servants. " So fate made this poetry classical and eminentlynational. Those characteristics which, in general literature, earn for awork the description "Homeric, " in Jewish literature make a liturgicalpoem "Kaliric, " so called from the poet Eliezer Kalir, the subject ofmany mythical tales, and the first of a long line of poets, Spanish, French, and German, extending to the sixteenth or seventeenth century. The literary history of this epoch has been written by Leopold Zunz withwarmth of feeling and stupendous learning. He closes his work with thehope that mankind, at some future day, will adopt Israel's religiouspoetry as its own, transforming the elegiac _Selicha_ into a joyouspsalm of universal peace and good-will. 

Side by side with religious flourishes secular poetry, clothing itselfin rhyme and metre, adopting every current form of poesy, and treatingof every appropriate subject. Its first votary was Solomon Gabirol, that

 "Human nightingale that warbled Forth her songs of tender love, In the darkness of the sombre, Gothic mediæval night. 

 She, that nightingale, sang only, Sobbing forth her adoration, To her Lord, her God, in heaven, Whom her songs of praise extolled. "[7]

Solomon Gabirol may be said to have been the first poet thrilled by_Weltschmerz_. "He produced hymns and songs, penitential prayers, psalms, and threnodies, filled with hope and longing for a blessedfuture. They are marked throughout by austere earnestness, brushingaway, in its rigor, the color and bloom of life; but side by side withit, surging forth from the deepest recesses of a human soul, is humbleadoration of God. "

Gabirol was a distinguished philosopher besides. In 1150, his chiefwork, "The Fount of Life, " was translated into Latin by ArchdeaconDominicus Gundisalvi, with the help of Johannes Avendeath, an apostateJew, the author's name being corrupted into Avencebrol, later becomingAvicebron. The work was made a text-book of scholastic philosophy, butneither Scotists nor Thomists, neither adherents nor detractors, suspected that a heretical Jew was slumbering under the name Avicebron. It remained for an inquirer of our own day, Solomon Munk, to reveal theface of Gabirol under the mask of a garbled name. Amazed, we behold thatthe pessimistic philosopher of to-day can as little as the schoolmen ofthe middle ages shake himself free from the despised Jew. Schopenhauermay object as he will, it is certain that Gabirol was his predecessor bymore than eight hundred years!

Charisi, whom we shall presently meet, has expressed the verdict on hispoetry which still holds good: "Solomon Gabirol pleases to call himselfthe small--yet before him all the great must dwindle and fall. --Who canlike him with mighty speech appall?--Compared with him the poets of histime are without power--he, the small, alone is a tower. --The highestround of poetry's ladder has he won. --Wisdom fondled him, eloquence hathcalled him son--and clothing him with purple, said: 'Lo!--my first-bornson, go forth, to conquest go!'--His predecessors' songs are naught withhis compared--nor have his many followers better fared. --The latersingers by him were taught--the heirs they are of his poeticthought. --But still he's king, to him all praise belongs--for Solomon'sis the Song of Songs. "

By Gabirol's side stands Yehuda Halevi, probably the only Jewish poetknown to the reader of general literature, to whom his name, life, andfate have become familiar through Heinrich Heine's _Romanzero_. Hismagnificent descriptions of nature "reflect southern skies, verdantmeadows, deep blue rivers, and the stormy sea, " and his erotic lyricsare chaste and tender. He sounds the praise of wine, youth, andhappiness, and extols the charms of his lady-love, but above and beyondall he devotes his song to Zion and his people. The pearl of his poems

 "Is the famous lamentation Sung in all the tents of Jacob, Scattered wide upon the earth . . . 

 Yea, it is the song of Zion, Which Yehuda ben Halevy, Dying on the holy ruins, Sang of loved Jerusalem. "[8]

"In the whole compass of religious poetry, Milton's and Klopstock's notexcepted, nothing can be found to surpass the elegy of Zion, " says amodern writer, a non-Jew. [9] This soul-stirring "Lay of Zion, " betterthan any number of critical dissertations, will give the reader a clearinsight into the character and spirit of Jewish poetry in general:

 O Zion! of thine exiles' peace take thought, The remnant of thy flock, who thine have sought! From west, from east, from north and south resounds, Afar and now anear, from all thy bounds, And no surcease, "With thee be peace!"

 In longing's fetters chained I greet thee, too, My tears fast welling forth like Hermon's dew-- O bliss could they but drop on holy hills! A croaking bird I turn, when through me thrills Thy desolate state; but when I dream anon, The Lord brings back thy ev'ry captive son-- A harp straightway To sing thy lay. 

 In heart I dwell where once thy purest son At Bethel and Peniel, triumphs won; God's awesome presence there was close to thee, Whose doors thy Maker, by divine decree, Opposed as mates To heaven's gates. 

 Nor sun, nor moon, nor stars had need to be; God's countenance alone illumined thee On whose elect He poured his spirit out. In thee would I my soul pour forth devout! Thou wert the kingdom's seat, of God the throne, And now there dwells a slave race, not thine own, In royal state, Where reigned thy great. 

 O would that I could roam o'er ev'ry place Where God to missioned prophets showed His grace! And who will give me wings? An off'ring meet, I'd haste to lay upon thy shattered seat, Thy counterpart-- My bruisèd heart. 

 Upon thy precious ground I'd fall prostrate, Thy stones caress, the dust within thy gate, And happiness it were in awe to stand At Hebron's graves, the treasures of thy land, And greet thy woods, thy vine-clad slopes, thy vales, Greet Abarim and Hor, whose light ne'er pales, A radiant crown, Thy priests' renown. 

 Thy air is balm for souls; like myrrh thy sand; With honey run the rivers of thy land. Though bare my feet, my heart's delight I'd count To thread my way all o'er thy desert mount, Where once rose tall Thy holy hall, Where stood thy treasure-ark, in recess dim, Close-curtained, guarded o'er by cherubim. My Naz'rite's crown would I pluck off, and cast It gladly forth. With curses would I blast The impious time thy people, diadem-crowned, Thy Nazirites, did pass, by en'mies bound With hatred's bands, In unclean lands. 

 By dogs thy lusty lions are brutal torn And dragged; thy strong, young eaglets, heav'nward borne, By foul-mouthed ravens snatched, and all undone. Can food still tempt my taste? Can light of sun Seem fair to shine To eyes like mine?

 Soft, soft! Leave off a while, O cup of pain! My loins are weighted down, my heart and brain, With bitterness from thee. Whene'er I think Of Oholah, [10] proud northern queen, I drink Thy wrath, and when my Oholivah forlorn Comes back to mind--'tis then I quaff thy scorn, Then, draught of pain, Thy lees I drain. 

 O Zion! Crown of grace! Thy comeliness Hath ever favor won and fond caress. Thy faithful lovers' lives are bound in thine; They joy in thy security, but pine And weep in gloom O'er thy sad doom. 

 From out the prisoner's cell they sigh for thee, And each in prayer, wherever he may be, Towards thy demolished portals turns. Exiled, Dispersed from mount to hill, thy flock defiled Hath not forgot thy sheltering fold. They grasp Thy garment's hem, and trustful, eager, clasp, With outstretched arms, Thy branching palms. 

 Shinar, Pathros--can they in majesty With thee compare? Or their idolatry With thy Urim and thy Thummim august? Who can surpass thy priests, thy saintly just, Thy prophets bold, And bards of old?

 The heathen kingdoms change and wholly cease-- Thy might alone stands firm without decrease, Thy Nazirites from age to age abide, Thy God in thee desireth to reside. Then happy he who maketh choice of thee To dwell within thy courts, and waits to see, And toils to make, Thy light awake. 

 On him shall as the morning break thy light, The bliss of thy elect shall glad his sight, In thy felicities shall he rejoice, In triumph sweet exult, with jubilant voice, O'er thee, adored, To youth restored. 

We have loitered long with Yehuda Halevi, and still not long enough, forwe have not yet spoken of his claims to the title philosopher, won forhim by his book _Al-Chazari_. But now we must hurry on to Moses benEzra, the last and most worldly of the three great poets. He devotes hisgenius to his patrons, to wine, his faithless mistress, and to"bacchanalian feasts under leafy canopies, with merry minstrelsy ofbirds. " He laments over separation from friends and kin, weeps over theshortness of life and the rapid approach of hoary age--all in polishedlanguage, sometimes, however, lacking euphony. Even when he strikes hislyre in praise and honor of his people Israel, he fails to rise to thelofty heights attained by his mates in song. 

With Yehuda Charisi, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, theperiod of the epigones sets in for Spanish-Jewish literature. InCharisi's _Tachkemoni_, an imitation of the poetry of the Arab Hariri, jest and serious criticism, joy and grief, the sublime and the trivial, follow each other like tints in a parti-colored skein. His distinctionis the ease with which he plays upon the Hebrew language, not the mostpliable of instruments. In general, Jewish poets and philosophers havemanipulated that language with surprising dexterity. Songs, hymns, elegies, penitential prayers, exhortations, and religious meditations, generation after generation, were couched in the idiom of the psalmist, yet the structure of the language underwent no change. "The developmentof the neo-Hebraic idiom from the ancient Hebrew, " a distinguishedmodern ethnographer justly says, "confirms, by linguistic evidence, theplasticity, the logical acumen, the comprehensive and at the same timeversatile intellectuality of the Jewish race. By the ingeniouscompounding of words, by investing old expressions with new meanings, and adapting the material offered by alien or related languages to itsown purposes, it has increased and enriched a comparatively meagretreasury of words. "[11]

Side by side with this cosmopolitanism, illustrated in the Haggada, whose pages prove that nothing human is strange to the Jewish race, itreveals, in its literary development, as notably in the Halacha, asharply defined subjectivity. Jellinek says: "Not losing itself in thecontemplation of the phenomena of life, not devoting itself to anysubject unless it be with an ulterior purpose, but seeing all things intheir relation to itself, and subordinating them to its own boldlyasserted _ego_, the Jewish race is not inclined to apply its powers tothe solution of intricate philosophic problems, or to abstrusemetaphysical speculations. It is, therefore, not a philosophic race, andits participation in the philosophic work of the world dates only fromits contact with the Greeks. " The same author, on the other hand, emphasizes the liberality, the broad sympathies, of the Jewish race, inhis statement that the Jewish mind, at its first meeting with Arabicphilosophy, absorbed it as a leaven into its intellectual life. Theproduct of the assimilation was--as early as the twelfth century, markyou--a philosophic conception of life, whose broad liberality culminatesin the sentiment expressed by two most eminent thinkers: Christianityand Islam are the precursors of a world-religion, the preliminaryconditions for the great religious system satisfying all men. YehudaHalevi and Moses Maimonides were the philosophers bold enough to utterthis thought of far-reaching significance. 

The second efflorescence of Jewish poetry brings forth exotic romances, satires, verbose hymns, and humorous narrative poems. Such productionscertainly do not justify the application of the epithet "theological" toJewish literature. Solomon ben Sakbel composes a satiric romance in theMakamat[12] form, describing the varied adventures of Asher ben Yehuda, another Don Quixote; Berachya Hanakdan puts into Hebrew the fables ofÆsop and Lokman, furnishing La Fontaine with some of his material;Abraham ibn Sahl receives from the Arabs, certainly not noted forliberality, ten goldpieces for each of his love-songs; Santob de Carrionis a beloved Spanish bard, bold enough to tell unpleasant truths unto aking; Joseph ibn Sabara writes a humorous romance; Yehuda Sabbataï, epicsatires, "The War of Wealth and Wisdom, " and "A Gift from a Misogynist, "and unnamed authors, "Truth's Campaign, " and "Praise of Women. "

A satirist of more than ordinary gifts was the Italian Kalonymos, whose"Touchstone, " like Ibn Chasdaï's Makamat, "The Prince and the Dervish, "has been translated into German. Contemporaneous with them was Süsskindvon Trimberg, the Suabian minnesinger, and Samson Pnie, of Strasburg, who helped the German poets continue _Parzival_, while later on, inItaly, Moses Rieti composed "The Paradise" in Hebrew _terza-rima_. 

In the decadence of Jewish literature, the most prominent figure isImmanuel ben Solomon, or Manoello, as the Italians call him. Criticsthink him the precursor of Boccaccio, and history knows him as thefriend of Dante, whose _Divina Commedia_ he travestied in Hebrew. Theauthor of the first Hebrew sonnet and of the first Hebrew novel, he wasa talented writer, but as frivolous as talented. 

This is the development of Jewish poetry during its great period. Inother departments of literature, in philosophy, in theology, in ethics, in Bible exegesis, the race is equally prolific in minds of the firstorder. Glancing back for a moment, our eye is arrested by MosesMaimonides, the great systematizer of the Jewish Law, and the connectinglink between scholasticism and the Greek-Arabic development of theAristotelian system. Before his time Bechaï ibn Pakuda and Joseph ibnZadik had entered upon theosophic speculations with the object ofharmonizing Arabic and Greek philosophy, and in the age immediatelypreceding that of Maimonides, Abraham ibn Daud, a writer of surprisinglyliberal views, had undertaken, in "The Highest Faith, " the task ofreconciling faith with philosophy. At the same time rationalistic Bibleexegesis was begun by Abraham ibn Ezra, an acute but recklesscontroversialist. Orthodox interpretations of the Bible had, before him, been taught in France by Rashi (Solomon Yitschaki) and Samuel ben Meïr, and continued by German rabbis, who, at the same time, were preachers ofmorality--a noteworthy phenomenon in a persecuted tribe. "How pure andstrong its ethical principles were is shown by its religious poetry aswell as by its practical Law. What pervades the poetry as a high ideal, in the application of the Law becomes demonstrable reality. The wraptenthusiasm in the hymns of Samuel the Pious and other poets is embodied, lives, in the rulings of Yehuda Hakohen, Solomon Yitschaki, and Jacobben Meïr; in the legal opinions of Isaac ben Abraham, Eliezer ha-Levi, Isaac ben Moses, Meïr ben Baruch, and their successors, and in thecodices of Eliezer of Metz and Moses de Coucy. A German professor[13] ofa hundred years ago, after glancing through some few Jewish writings, exclaimed, in a tone of condescending approval: 'Christians of that timecould scarcely have been expected to enjoin such high moral principlesas this Jew wrote down and bequeathed to his brethren in faith!'"

Jewish literature in this and the next period consists largely oftheological discussions and of commentaries on the Talmud produced bythe hundred. It would be idle to name even the most prominent authors;their works belong to the history of theologic science, and rarely had adetermining influence upon the development of genuine literature. 

We must also pass over in silence the numerous Jewish physicians andmedical writers; but it must be remembered that they, too, belong toJewish literature. The most marvellous characteristic of this literatureis that in it the Jewish race has registered each step of itsdevelopment. "All things learned, gathered, obtained, on its journeyingshither and thither--Greek philosophy and Arabic, as well as Latinscholasticism--all deposited themselves in layers about the Bible, sostamping later Jewish literature with an individuality that gave it anunique place among the literatures of the world. "

The travellers, however, must be mentioned by name. Their itinerarieswere wholly dedicated to the interests of their co-religionists. Thefirst of the line is Eldad, the narrator of a sort of Hebrew Odyssey. Benjamin of Tudela and Petachya of Ratisbon are deserving of moreconfidence as veracious chroniclers, and their descriptions, togetherwith Charisi's, complete the Jewish library of travels of those earlydays, unless, with Steinschneider, we consider, as we truly may, themajority of Jewish authors under this head. For Jewish writers a hard, necessitous lot has ever been a storm wind, tossing them hither andthither, and blowing the seeds of knowledge over all lands. Withallearning proved an enveloping, protecting cloak to these mendicant andpilgrim authors. The dispersion of the Jews, their internationalcommerce, and the desire to maintain their academies, stimulated a lovefor travel, made frequent journeyings a necessity, indeed. In this wayonly can we account for the extraordinarily rapid spread of Jewishliterature in the middle ages. The student of those times often chancesacross a rabbi, who this day teaches, lectures, writes in Candia, to-morrow in Rome, next year in Prague or Cracow, and so Jewishliterature is the "wandering Jew" among the world's literatures. 

The fourth period, the Augustan age of our literature, closes with ajarring discord--the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, their secondhome, in which they had seen ministers, princes, professors, and poetsrise from their ranks. The scene of literary activity changes: France, Italy, but chiefly the Slavonic East, are pushed into the foreground. Itis not a salutary change; it ushers in three centuries of decay andstagnation in literary endeavor. The sum of the efforts is indicated bythe name of the period, the Rabbinical, for its chief work was thedevelopment and fixation of Rabbinism. 

Decadence did not set in immediately. Certain beneficent forces, eithercontinuing in action from the former period, or arising out of the newconcatenation of circumstances, were in operation: Jewish exiles fromSpain carried their culture to the asylums hospitably offered them inthe Orient and a few of the European countries, notably Holland; the artof printing was spreading, the first presses in Italy bringing outJewish works; and the sun of humanism and of the Reformation was risingand shedding solitary rays of its effulgence on the Jewish minds then atwork. 

Among the noteworthy authors standing between the two periods andbelonging to both, the most prominent is Nachmanides, a pious andlearned Bible scholar. With logical force and critical candor he enteredinto the great conflict between science and faith, then dividing theJewish world into two camps, with Maimonides' works as their shibboleth. The Aristotelian philosophy was no longer satisfying. Minds and heartswere yearning for a new revelation, and in default thereof steepingthemselves in mystical speculations. A voluminous theosophic literaturesprang up. The _Zohar_, the Bible of mysticism, was circulated, itsauthorship being fastened upon a rabbi of olden days. It is altogetherprobable that the real author was living at the time; many think that itwas Moses de Leon. The liberal party counted in its ranks the twodistinguished families of Tibbon and Kimchi, the former famed assuccessful translators, the latter as grammarians. Their best knownrepresentatives were Judah ibn Tibbon and David Kimchi. Curiouslyenough, the will of the former contains, in unmistakable terms, theopinion that "Property is theft, " anticipating Proudhon, who, had heknown it, would have seen in its early enunciation additional testimonyto its truth. The liberal faction was also supported by Jacob benAbba-Mari, the friend of Frederick II. And Michael Scotus. Abba-Marilived at the German emperor's court at Naples, and quoted him in hiscommentary upon the Bible as an exegete. Besides there were among theMaimunists, or rationalists, Levi ben Abraham, an extraordinarilyliberal man; Shemtob Palquera, one of the most learned Jews of hiscentury, and Yedaya Penini, a philosopher and pessimistic poet, whose"Contemplation of the World" was translated by Mendelssohn, and praisedby Lessing and Goethe. Despite this array of talent, the opponents werestronger, the most representative partisan being the Talmudist Solomonben Aderet. 

At the same time disputations about the Talmud, ending with its publicburning at Paris, were carried on with the Christian clergy. The otherliterary current of the age is designated by the word Kabbala, whichheld many of the finest and noblest minds captive to its witchery. TheKabbala is unquestionably a continuation of earlier theosophicinquiries. Its chief doctrines have been stated by a thorough student ofour literature: All that exists originates in God, the source of lighteternal. He Himself can be known only through His manifestations. He iswithout beginning, and veiled in mystery, or, He is nothing, because thewhole of creation has developed from nothing. This nothing is one, indivisible, and limitless--_En-Sof_. God fills space, He is spaceitself. In order to manifest Himself, in order to create, that is, disclose Himself by means of emanations, He contracts, thus producingvacant space. The _En-Sof_ first manifested itself in the prototype ofthe whole of creation, in the macrocosm called the "son of God, " thefirst man, as he appears upon the chariot of Ezekiel. From thisprimitive man the whole created world emanates in four stages: _Azila_, _Beria_, _Yezira_, _Asiya_. The _Azila_ emanation represents the activequalities of primitive man. They are forces or intelligences flowingfrom him, at once his essential qualities and the faculties by which heacts. There are ten of these forces, forming the ten sacred _Sefiroth_, a word which first meaning number came to stand for sphere. The firstthree _Sefiroth_ are intelligences, the seven others, attributes. Theyare supposed to follow each other in this order: 1. _Kether_ (crown); 2. _Chochma_ (wisdom); 3. _Beena_ (understanding); 4. _Chesed_ (grace), or_Ghedulla_ (greatness); 5. _Ghevoora_ (dignity); 6. _Tifereth_(splendor); 7. _Nezach_ (victory); 8. _Hod_ (majesty); 9. _Yesod_(principle); 10. _Malchuth_ (kingdom). From this first world of the_Azila_ emanate the three other worlds, _Asiya_ being the lowest stage. Man has part in these three worlds; a microcosm, he realizes in hisactual being what is foreshadowed by the ideal, primitive man. He holdsto the _Asiya_ by his vital part (_Nefesh_), to the _Yezira_ by hisintellect (_Ruach_), to the _Beria_ by his soul (_Neshama_). The last ishis immortal part, a spark of divinity. 

Speculations like these, followed to their logical issue, are bound tolead the investigator out of Judaism into Trinitarianism or Pantheism. Kabbalists, of course only in rare cases, realized the danger. The sadconditions prevailing in the era after the expulsion from Spain, a thirdexile, were in all respects calculated to promote the development ofmysticism, and it did flourish luxuriantly. 

Some few philosophers, the last of a long line, still await mention:Levi ben Gerson, Joseph Kaspi, Moses of Narbonne in southern France, long a seat of Jewish learning; then, Isaac ben Sheshet, ChasdaïCrescas, whose "Light of God" exercised deep influence upon Spinoza andhis philosophy; the Duran family, particularly Profiat Duran, successfuldefender of Judaism against the attacks of apostates and Christians; andJoseph Albo, who in his principal philosophic work, _Ikkarim_, showsJudaism to be based upon three fundamental doctrines: the belief in theexistence of God, Revelation, and the belief in future reward andpunishment. These writers are the last to reflect the glories of thegolden age. 

At the entrance to the next period we again meet a man of extraordinaryability, Isaac Abrabanel, one of the most eminent and esteemed of Biblecommentators, in early life minister to a Catholic king, later on apilgrim scholar wandering about exiled with his sons, one of whom, Yehuda, has fame as the author of the _Dialoghi di Amore_. In the trainof exiles passing from Portugal to the Orient are Abraham Zacuto, aneminent historian of Jewish literature and sometime professor ofastronomy at the university of Salamanca; Joseph ibn Verga, thehistorian of his nation; Amatus Lusitanus, who came close upon thediscovery of the circulation of the blood; Israel Nagara, the mostgifted poet of the century, whose hymns brought him popular favor;later, Joseph Karo, "the most influential personage of the sixteenthcentury, " his claims upon recognition resting on the _Shulchan Aruch_, an exhaustive codex of Jewish customs and laws; and many others. InSalonica, the exiles soon formed a prosperous community, whereflourished Jacob ibn Chabib, the first compiler of the Haggadistic talesof the Talmud, and afterwards David Conforte, a reputable historian. InJerusalem, Obadiah Bertinoro was engaged on his celebrated Mishnacommentary, in the midst of a large circle of Kabbalists, of whomSolomon Alkabez is the best known on account of his famous Sabbath song, _Lecho Dodi_. Once again Jerusalem was the objective point of manypilgrims, lured thither by the prevalent Kabbalistic and Messianicvagaries. True literature gained little from such extremists. The onlywork produced by them that can be admitted to have literary qualities isIsaiah Hurwitz's "The Two Tables of the Testimony, " even at this dayenjoying celebrity. It is a sort of cyclopædia of Jewish learning, compiled and expounded from a mystic's point of view. 

The condition of the Jews in Italy was favorable, and their literaryproducts derive grace from their good fortune. The Renaissance had abenign effect upon them, and the revival of classical studies influencedtheir intellectual work. Greek thought met Jewish a third time. Learningwas enjoying its resurrection, and whenever their wretched politicaland social condition was not a hindrance, the Jews joined in thegeneral delight. Their misery, however, was an undiminishing burden, yea, even in the days in which, according to Erasmus, it was joy tolive. In fact, it was growing heavier. All the more noteworthy is itthat Hebrew studies engaged the research of scholars, albeit they showedcare for the word of God, and not for His people. Pico della Mirandolastudies the Kabbala; the Jewish grammarian Elias Levita is the teacherof Cardinal Egidio de Viterbo, and later of Paul Fagius and SebastianMünster, the latter translating his teacher's works into Latin; popesand sultans prefer Jews as their physicians in ordinary, who, as a rule, are men of literary distinction; the Jews translate philosophic writingsfrom Hebrew and Arabic into Latin; Elias del Medigo is summoned asarbiter in the scholastic conflict at the University of Padua;--allboots nothing, ruin is not averted. Reuchlin may protest as he will, theJew is exiled, the Talmud burnt. 

In such dreary days the Portuguese Samuel Usque writes his work, _Consolaçam as Tribulações de Ysrael_, and Joseph Cohen, his chronicle, "The Vale of Weeping, " the most important history produced since the dayof Flavius Josephus, --additional proofs that the race possesses nativebuoyancy, and undaunted heroism in enduring suffering. Women, too, inincreasing number, participate in the spiritual work of their nation;among them, Deborah Ascarelli and Sara Copia Sullam, the mostdistinguished of a long array of names. 

The keen critic and scholar, Azariah de Rossi, is one of the literarygiants of his period. His researches in the history of Jewish literatureare the basis upon which subsequent work in this department rests, andmany of his conclusions still stand unassailable. About him are groupedAbraham de Portaleone, an excellent archæologist, who established thatJews had been the first to observe the medicinal uses of gold; David dePomis, the author of a famous defense of Jewish physicians; and Leo deModena, the rabbi of Venice, "unstable as water, " wavering between faithand unbelief, and, Kabbalist and rabbi though he was, writing worksagainst the Kabbala on the one hand, and against rabbinical tradition onthe other. Similar to him in character is Joseph del Medigo, anitinerant author, who sometimes reviles, sometimes extols, the Kabbala. 

There are men of higher calibre, as, for instance, Isaac Aboab, whose_Nomologia_ undertakes to defend Jewish tradition against every sort ofassailant; Samuel Aboab, a great Bible scholar; Azariah Figo, a famouspreacher; and, above all, Moses Chayyim Luzzatto, the first Jewishdramatist, the dramas preceding his having interest only as attempts. He, too, is caught in the meshes of the Kabbala, and falls a victim toits powers of darkness. His dramas testify to poetic gifts and toextraordinary mastery of the Hebrew language, the faithful companion ofthe Jewish nation in all its journeyings. To complete this sketch of theItalian Jews of that period, it should be added that while in intellectand attainments they stand above their brethren in faith of othercountries, in character and purity of morals they are their inferiors. 

Thereafter literary interest centres in Poland, where rabbinicalliterature found its most zealous and most learned exponents. Throughoutthe land schools were established, in which the Talmud was taught by the_Pilpul_, an ingenious, quibbling method of Talmudic reasoning anddiscussion, said to have originated with Jacob Pollak. Again we have along succession of distinguished names. There are Solomon Luria, MosesIsserles, Joel Sirkes, David ben Levi, Sabbataï Kohen, and Elias Wilna. Sabbataï Kohen, from whom, were pride of ancestry permissible in therepublic of letters, the present writer would boast descent, was notonly a Talmudic writer; he also left historical and poetical works. Elias Wilna, the last in the list, had a subtle, delicately poised mind, and deserves special mention for his determined opposition to theKabbala and its offspring Chassidism, hostile and ruinous to Judaism andJewish learning. 

A gleam of true pleasure can be obtained from the history of the DutchJews. In Holland the Jews united secular culture with religiousdevotion, and the professors of other faiths met them with tolerance andfriendliness. Sunshine falls upon the Jewish schools, and right into theheart of a youth, who straightway abandons the Talmud folios, and goesout into the world to proclaim to wondering mankind the evangel of anew philosophy. The youth is Baruch Spinoza!

There are many left to expound Judaism: Manasseh ben Israel, writingboth Hebrew and Latin books to plead the cause of the emancipation ofhis people and of its literary pre-eminence; David Neto, a student ofphilosophy; Benjamin Mussafia, Orobio de Castro, David Abenator Melo, the Spanish translator of the Psalms, and Daniel de Barrios, poet andcritic--all using their rapidly acquired fluency in the Dutch languageto champion the cause of their people. 

In Germany, a mixture of German and Hebrew had come into use among theJews as the medium of daily intercourse. In this peculiar patois, called_Judendeutsch_, a large literature had developed. Before Luther's time, it possessed two fine translations of the Bible, besides numerouswritings of an ethical, poetical, and historical character, among whichparticular mention should be made of those on the German legend-cyclesof the middle ages. At the same time, the Talmud receives its due oftime, effort, and talent. New life comes only with the era ofemancipation and enlightenment. 

Only a few names shall be mentioned, the rest would be bound soon toescape the memory of the casual reader: there is an historian, DavidGans; a bibliographer, Sabbataï Bassista, and the Talmudists AbigedorKara, Jacob Joshua, Jacob Emden, Jonathan Eibeschütz, and EzekielLandau. It is delight to be able once again to chronicle the interesttaken in long neglected Jewish literature by such Christian scholars asthe two Buxtorfs, Bartolocci, Wolff, Surrenhuys, and De Rossi. Unfortunately, the interest dies out with them, and it is significantthat to this day most eminent theologians, decidedly to their owndisadvantage, "content themselves with unreliable secondary sources, "instead of drinking from the fountain itself. 

We have arrived at the sixth and last period, our own, not yetcompleted, whose fruits will be judged by a future generation. It is theperiod of the rejuvenescence of Jewish literature. Changes in character, tenor, form, and language take place. Germany for the first time is inthe van, and Mendelssohn, its most attractive figure, stands at thebeginning of the period, surrounded by his disciples Wessely, Homberg, Euchel, Friedländer, and others, in conjunction with whom he gives Jewsa new, pure German Bible translation. Poetry and philology are zealouslypursued, and soon Jewish science, through its votaries Leopold Zunz andS. J. Rappaport, celebrates a brilliant renascence, such as the poetdescribes: "In the distant East the dawn is breaking, --The olden timesare growing young again. "

_Die Gottesdienstlichen Vorträge der Juden_, by Zunz, published in 1832, was the pioneer work of the new Jewish science, whose presentdevelopment, despite its wide range, has not yet exhausted thesuggestions made, by the author. Other equally important works from thesame pen followed, and then came the researches of Rappaport, Z. Frankel, I. M. Jost, M. Sachs, S. D. Luzzatto, S. Munk, A. Geiger, L. Herzfeld, H. Graetz, J. Fürst, L. Dukes, M. Steinschneider, D. Cassel, S. Holdheim, and a host of minor investigators and teachers. Theirloving devotion roused Jewish science and literature from their secularsleep to vigorous, intellectual life, reacting beneficently on thespiritual development of Judaism itself. The moulders of the newliterature are such men as the celebrated preachers Adolf Jellinek, Salomon, Kley, Mannheimer; the able thinkers Steinheim, Hirsch, Krochmal; the illustrious scholars M. Lazarus, H. Steinthal; and theversatile journalists G. Riesser and L. Philipson. 

Poetry has not been neglected in the general revival. The first Jewishpoet to write in German was M. E. Kuh, whose tragic fate has beenpathetically told by Berthold Auerbach in his _Dichter und Kaufmann_. The burden of this modern Jewish poetry is, of course, the glorificationof the loyalty and fortitude that preserved the race during a calamitouspast. Such poets as Steinheim, Wihl, L. A. Frankl, M. Beer, K. Beck, Th. Creizenach, M. Hartmann, S. H. Mosenthal, Henriette Ottenheimer, MoritzRappaport, and L. Stein, sing the songs of Zion in the tongue of theGerman. And can Heine be forgotten, he who in his _Romanzero_ has somelodiously, yet so touchingly given word to the hoary sorrow of theJew?

In an essay of this scope no more can be done than give the barestoutline of the modern movement. A detailed description of the work ofGerman-Jewish lyrists belongs to the history of German literature, and, in fact, on its pages can be found a due appreciation of their worth byunprejudiced critics, who give particularly high praise to the newspecies of tales, the Jewish village, or Ghetto, tales, with whichJewish and German literatures have latterly been enriched. Their objectis to depict the religious customs in vogue among Jews of pastgenerations, their home-life, and the conflicts that arose when the oldJudaism came into contact with modern views of life. The master in theart of telling these Ghetto tales is Leopold Kompert. Of hisdisciples--for all coming after him may be considered such--A. Bernsteindescribed the Jews of Posen; K. E. Franzos and L. Herzberg-Fränkel, those of Poland; E. Kulke, the Moravian Jews; M. Goldschmied, the Dutch;S. H. Mosenthal, the Hessian, and M. Lehmann, the South German. ToBerthold Auerbach's pioneer work this whole class of literature owes itsexistence; and Heinrich Heine's fragment, _Rabbi von Bacharach_, a modelof its kind, puts him into this category of writers, too. 

And so Judaism and Jewish literature are stepping into a new arena, onwhich potent forces that may radically affect both are struggling witheach other. Is Jewish poetry on the point of dying out, or is itdestined to enjoy a resurrection? Who would be rash enough to prophesyaught of a race whose entire past is a riddle, whose literature is aquestion-mark? Of a race which for more than a thousand years has, likeits progenitor, been wrestling victoriously with gods and men?

To recapitulate: We have followed out the course of a literarydevelopment, beginning in grey antiquity with biblical narratives, assimilating Persian doctrines, Greek wisdom, and Roman law; later, Arabic poetry and philosophy, and, finally, the whole of Europeanscience in all its ramifications. The literature we have described hascontributed its share to every spiritual result achieved by humanity, and is a still unexplored treasury of poetry and philosophy, ofexperience and knowledge. 

"All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is never full, " saith thePreacher; so all spiritual currents flow together into the vast ocean ofa world-literature, never full, never complete, rejoicing in everyaccession, reaching the climax of its might and majesty on that daywhen, according to the prophet, "the earth shall be full of theknowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. "

THE TALMUD

In the whole range of the world's literatures there are few books withso checkered a career, so curious a fate, as the Talmud has had. Thename is simple enough, it glides glibly from the tongue, yet howdifficult to explain its import to the uninitiated! From the DominicanHenricus Seynensis, who took "Talmud" to be the name of a rabbi--heintroduces a quotation with _Ut narrat rabbinus Talmud_, "As RabbiTalmud relates"--down to the church historians and university professorsof our day, the oddest misconceptions on the nature of the Talmud haveprevailed even among learned men. It is not astonishing, then, that thegeneral reader has no notion of what it is. 

Only within recent years the Talmud has been made the subject ofscientific study, and now it is consulted by philologists, cited byjurists, drawn upon by historians, the general public is beginning to beinterested in it, and of late the old Talmud has repeatedly beensummoned to appear in courts of law to give evidence. Under thesecircumstances it is natural to ask, What is the Talmud? Futile to seekan answer by comparing this gigantic monument of the human intellectwith any other book; it is _sui generis_. In the form in which it issuedfrom the Jewish academies of Babylonia and Palestine, it is a greatnational work, a scientific document of first importance, the archivesof ten centuries, in which are preserved the thoughts and opinions, theviews and verdicts, the errors, transgressions, hopes, disappointments, customs, ideals, convictions, and sorrows of Israel--a work produced bythe zeal and patience of thirty generations, laboring with a self-denialunparalleled in the history of literature. A work of this characterassuredly deserves to be known. Unfortunately, the path to itsunderstanding is blocked by peculiar linguistic and historicaldifficulties. Above all, explanations by comparison must be avoided. Ithas been likened to a legal code, to a journal, to the transactions oflearned bodies; but these comparisons are both inadequate andmisleading. To make it approximately clear a lengthy explanation must beentered upon, for, in truth, the Talmud, like the Bible, is a world inminiature, embracing every possible phase of life. 

The origin of the Talmud was simultaneous with Israel's return from theBabylonian exile, during which a wonderful change had taken place in thecaptive people. An idolatrous, rebellious nation had turned into a piouscongregation of the Lord, possessed with zeal for the study of the Law. By degrees there grew up out of this study a science of wide scope, whose beginnings are hidden in the last book of the Bible, in the word_Midrash_, translated by "story" in the Authorized Version. Its truemeaning is indicated by that of its root, _darash_, to study, toexpound. Four different methods of explaining the sacred Scriptures werecurrent: the first aimed to reach the simple understanding of words asthey stood; the second availed itself of suggestions offered byapparently superfluous letters and signs in the text to arrive at itsmeaning; the third was "a homiletic application of that which had beento that which was and would be, of prophetical and historical dicta tothe actual condition of things"; and the fourth devoted itself totheosophic mysteries--but all led to a common goal. 

In the course of the centuries the development of the Midrash, or studyof the Law, lay along the two strongly marked lines of Halacha, theexplanation and formulating of laws, and Haggada, their poeticalillustration and ethical application. These are the two spheres withinwhich the intellectual life of Judaism revolved, and these the twoelements, the legal and the æsthetic, making up the Talmud. 

The two Midrashic systems emphasize respectively the rule of law and thesway of liberty: Halacha is law incarnate; Haggada, liberty regulated bylaw and bearing the impress of morality. Halacha stands for the rigidauthority of the Law, for the absolute importance of theory--the law andtheory which the Haggada illustrates by public opinion and the dicta ofcommon-sense morality. The Halacha embraces the statutes enjoined byoral tradition, which was the unwritten commentary of the ages on thewritten Law, along with the discussions of the academies of Palestineand Babylonia, resulting in the final formulating of the Halachicordinances. The Haggada, while also starting from the word of the Bible, only plays with it, explaining it by sagas and legends, by tales andpoems, allegories, ethical reflections, and historical reminiscences. For it, the Bible was not only the supreme law, from whose behests therewas no appeal, but also "a golden nail upon which" the Haggada "hung itsgorgeous tapestries, " so that the Bible word was the introduction, refrain, text, and subject of the poetical glosses of the Talmud. It wasthe province of the Halacha to build, upon the foundation of biblicallaw, a legal superstructure capable of resisting the ravages of time, and, unmindful of contemporaneous distress and hardship, to trace out, for future generations, the extreme logical consequences of the Law inits application. To the Haggada belonged the high, ethical mission ofconsoling, edifying, exhorting, and teaching a nation suffering thepangs, and threatened with the spiritual stagnation, of exile; ofproclaiming that the glories of the past prefigured a future of equalbrilliancy, and that the very wretchedness of the present was part ofthe divine plan outlined in the Bible. If the simile is accurate thatlikens the Halacha to the ramparts about Israel's sanctuary, which everyJew was ready to defend with his last drop of blood, then the Haggadamust seem "flowery mazes, of exotic colors and bewildering fragrance, "within the shelter of the Temple walls. 

The complete work of expounding, developing, and finally establishingthe Law represents the labor of many generations, the method ofprocedure varying from time to time. In the long interval between theclose of the Holy Canon and the completion of the Talmud can bedistinguished three historical strata deposited by three differentclasses of teachers. The first set, the Scribes--_Soferim_--flourishedin the period beginning with the return from Babylonian captivity andending with the Syrian persecutions (220 B. C. E. ), and their work was thepreservation of the text of the Holy Writings and the simple expoundingof biblical ordinances. They were followed by the"Learners"--_Tanaïm_--whose activity extended until 220 C. E. Greathistorical events occurred in that period: the campaigns of theMaccabean heroes, the birth of Jesus, the destruction of the Temple bythe Romans, the rebellion under Bar-Kochba, and the final completedispersion of the Jews. Amid all these storms the _Tanaïm_ did not for amoment relinquish their diligent research in the Law. The Talmud tellsthe story of a celebrated rabbi, than which nothing can bettercharacterize the age and its scholars: Night was falling. A funeralcortege was moving through the streets of old Jerusalem. It was saidthat disciples were bearing a well-beloved teacher to the grave. Reverentially the way was cleared, not even the Roman guard at the gatehindered the procession. Beyond the city walls it halted, the bier wasset down, the lid of the coffin opened, and out of it arose thevenerable form of Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkaï, who, to reach the Romancamp unmolested, had feigned death. He went before Vespasian, and, impressed by the noble figure of the hoary rabbi, the general promisedhim the fulfilment of any wish he might express. What was his petition?Not for his nation, not for the preservation of the Holy City, not evenfor the Temple. His request was simple: "Permit me to open a school atJabneh. " The proud Roman smilingly gave consent. He had no conception ofthe significance of this prayer and of the prophetic wisdom of thepetitioner, who, standing on the ruins of his nation's independence, thought only of rescuing the Law. Rome, the empire of the "iron legs, "was doomed to be crushed, nation after nation to be swallowed in thevortex of time, but Israel lives by the Law, the very law snatched fromthe smouldering ruins of Jerusalem, the beloved alike of crazy zealotsand despairing peace advocates, and carried to the tiny seaport ofJabneh. There Jochanan ben Zakkaï opened his academy, the gatheringplace of the dispersed of his disciples and his people, and thence, gifted with a prophet's keen vision, he proclaimed Israel's mission tobe, not the offering of sacrifices, but the accomplishment of works ofpeace. [14]

The _Tanaïm_ may be considered the most original expounders of thescience of Judaism, which they fostered at their academies. In thecourse of centuries their intellectual labor amassed an abundant storeof scientific material, together with so vast a number of injunctions, prohibitions, and laws that it became almost impossible to master thesubject. The task of scholars now was to arrange the accumulation ofmaterial and reduce it to a system. Rabbi after rabbi undertook thetask, but only the fourth attempt at codification, that made by Yehudathe Prince, was successful. His compilation, classifying thesubject-matter under six heads, subdivided into sixty-three tractates, containing five hundred and twenty-four chapters, was called Mishna, andcame to be the authority appealed to on points of law. 

Having assumed fixity as a code, the Mishna in turn became what theBible had been for centuries--a text, the basis of all legal developmentand scientific discussion. So it was used by the epigones, the_Amoraïm_, or Speakers, the expounders of the third period. Forgenerations commenting on the Mishna was the sum-total of literaryendeavor. Traditions unheeded before sprang to light. New methodsasserted themselves. To the older generation of Halachists succeeded aset of men headed by Akiba ben Joseph, who, ignoring practical issues, evolved laws from the Bible text or from traditions held to be divine. Aspiritual, truly religious conception of Judaism was supplanted by legalquibbling and subtle methods of interpretation. Like the sophists ofRome and Alexandria at that time, the most celebrated teachers in theacademies of Babylonia and Palestine for centuries gave themselves up tocasuistry. This is the history of the development of the Talmud, or morecorrectly of the two Talmuds, the one, finished in 390 C. E. , being theexpression of what was taught at the Palestinian academies; the other, more important one, completed in 500 C. E. , of what was taught inBabylonia. 

The Babylonian, the one regarded as authoritative, is about four timesas large as the Jerusalem Talmud. Its thirty-six treatises(_Massichtoth_), in our present edition, cover upwards of three thousandfolio pages, bound in twelve huge volumes. To speak of a completedTalmud is as incorrect as to speak of a biblical canon. No religiousbody, no solemn resolution of a synod, ever declared either the Talmudor the Bible a completed whole. Canonizing of any kind is distinctlyopposed to the spirit of Judaism. The fact is that the tide oftraditional lore has never ceased to flow. 

We now have before us a faint outline sketch of the growth of theTalmud. To portray the busy world fitting into this frame is another andmore difficult matter. A catalogue of its contents may be made. It maybe said that it is a book containing laws and discussions, philosophic, theologic, and juridic dicta, historical notes and nationalreminiscences, injunctions and prohibitions controlling all thepositions and relations of life, curious, quaint tales, ideal maxims andproverbs, uplifting legends, charming lyrical outbursts, and attractiveenigmas side by side with misanthropic utterances, bewildering medicalprescriptions, superstitious practices, expressions of deep agony, peculiar astrological charms, and rambling digressions on law, zoology, and botany, and when all this has been said, not half itscontents have been told. It is a luxuriant jungle, which must beexplored by him who would gain an adequate idea of its features andproducts. 

The Ghemara, that is, the whole body of discussions recorded in the twoTalmuds, primarily forms a running commentary on the text of the Mishna. At the same time, it is the arena for the debating and investigating ofsubjects growing out of the Mishna, or suggested by a literaturedeveloped along with the Talmudic literature. These discussions, debates, and investigations are the opinions and arguments of thedifferent schools, holding opposite views, developed with rare acumenand scholastic subtlety, and finally harmonized in the solution reached. The one firm and impregnable rock supporting the gigantic structure ofthe Talmud is the word of the Bible, held sacred and inviolable. 

The best translations--single treatises have been put into modernlanguages--fail to convey an adequate idea of the discussions and methodthat evolved the Halacha. It is easier to give an approximately truepresentation of the rabbinical system of practical morality as gleanedfrom the Haggada. It must, of course, be borne in mind that Halacha andHaggada are not separate works; they are two fibres of the same thread. "The whole of the Haggadistic literature--the hitherto unappreciatedarchives of language, history, archæology, religion, poetry, andscience--with but slight reservations may be called a nationalliterature, containing as it does the aggregate of the views andopinions of thousands of thinkers belonging to widely separatedgenerations. Largely, of course, these views and opinions are peculiarto the individuals holding them or to their time"; still, everyHaggadistic expression, in a general way, illustrates some fundamental, national law, based upon the national religion and the nationalhistory. [15] Through the Haggada we are vouchsafed a glance into amysterious world, which mayhap has hitherto repelled us as strange andgrewsome. Its poesy reveals vistas of gleaming beauty and light, luxuriant growth and exuberant life, while familiar melodies caress ourears. 

The Haggada conveys its poetic message in the garb of allegory song, andchiefly epigrammatic saying. Form is disregarded; the spirit isall-important, and suffices to cover up every fault of form. The Talmud, of course, does not yield a complete system of ethics, but its practicalphilosophy consists of doctrines that underlie a moral life. Theinjustice of the abuse heaped upon it would become apparent to itsharshest critics from a few of its maxims and rules of conduct, such asthe following: Be of them that are persecuted, not of thepersecutors. --Be the cursed, not he that curses. --They that arepersecuted, and do not persecute, that are vilified and do not retort, that act in love, and are cheerful even in suffering, they are thelovers of God. --Bless God for the good as well as the evil. When thouhearest of a death, say, "Blessed be the righteous Judge. "--Life is likeunto a fleeting shadow. Is it the shadow of a tower or of a bird? It isthe shadow of a bird in its flight. Away flies the bird, and neitherbird nor shadow remains behind. --Repentance and good works are the aimof all earthly wisdom. --Even the just will not have so high a place inheaven as the truly repentant. --He whose learning surpasses his goodworks is like a tree with many branches and few roots, which awind-storm uproots and casts to the ground. But he whose good workssurpass his learning is like a tree with few branches and many roots;all the winds of heaven cannot move it from its place. --There are threecrowns: the crown of the Law, the crown of the priesthood, the crown ofkingship. But greater than all is the crown of a good name. --Four thereare that cannot enter Paradise: the scoffer, the liar, the hypocrite, and the backbiter. --Beat the gods, and the priests willtremble. --Contrition is better than many flagellations. --When thepitcher falls upon the stone, woe unto the pitcher; when the stone fallsupon the pitcher, woe unto the pitcher; whatever betides, woe unto thepitcher. --The place does not honor the man, the man honors theplace. --He who humbles himself will be exalted; he who exalts himselfwill be humbled, --Whosoever pursues greatness, from him will greatnessflee; whosoever flees from greatness, him will greatnesspursue. --Charity is as important as all other virtues combined. --Betender and yielding like a reed, not hard and proud like a cedar. --Thehypocrite will not see God. --It is not sufficient to be innocent beforeGod; we must show our innocence to the world. --The works encouraged by agood man are better than those he executes. --Woe unto him that practicesusury, he shall not live; whithersoever he goes, he carries injusticeand death. 

The same Talmud that fills chapter after chapter with minute legaldetails and hairsplitting debates outlines with a few strokes the mostideal conception of life, worth more than theories and systems ofreligious philosophy. A Haggada passage says: Six hundred and thirteeninjunctions were given by Moses to the people of Israel. David reducedthem to eleven; the prophet Isaiah classified these under six heads;Micah enumerated only three: "What doth the Lord require of thee, but todo justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God. " Anotherprophet limited them to two: "Keep ye judgment, and do righteousness. "Amos put all the commandments under one: "Seek ye me, and ye shalllive"; and Habakkuk said: "The just shall live by his faith. "--This isthe ethics of the Talmud. 

Another characteristic manifestation of the idealism of the Talmud isits delicate feeling for women and children. Almost extravagantaffection is displayed for the little ones. All the verses of Scripturethat speak of flowers and gardens are applied in the Talmud to childrenand schools. Their breath sustains the moral order of the universe: "Outof the mouth of babes and sucklings has God founded His might. " They arecalled flowers, stars, the anointed of God. When God was about to givethe Law, He demanded of the Israelites pledges to assure Him that theywould keep His commandments holy. They offered the patriarchs, but eachone of them had committed some sin. They named Moses as their surety;not even he was guiltless. Then they said: "Let our children be ourhostages. " The Lord accepted them. 

Similarly, there are many expressions to show that woman was held inhigh esteem by the rabbis of the Talmud: Love thy wife as thyself; honorher more than thyself. --In choosing a wife, descend a step. --If thy wifeis small, bend and whisper into her ear. --God's altar weeps for him thatforsakes the love of his youth. --He who sees his wife die before himhas, as it were, been present at the destruction of the sanctuaryitself; around him the world grows dark. --It is woman alone through whomGod's blessings are vouchsafed to a house. --The children of him thatmarries for money shall be a curse unto him, --a warning singularlyapplicable to the circumstances of our own times. 

The peculiar charm of the Haggada is best revealed in its legends andtales, its fables and myths, its apologues and allegories, its riddlesand songs. The starting-point of the Haggada usually is some memory ofthe great past. It entwines and enmeshes in a magic network the lives ofthe patriarchs, prophets, and martyrs, and clothes with fresh, luxuriantgreen the old ideals and figures, giving them new life for a remotegeneration. The teachers of the Haggada allow no opportunity, sad ormerry, to pass without utilizing it in the guise of an apologue orparable. Alike for wedding-feasts and funerals, for banquets and days offasting, the garden of the Haggada is rifled of its fragrant blossomsand luscious fruits. Simplicity, grace, and childlike merriment pervadeits fables, yet they are profound, even sublime, in their truth. "Theirchief and enduring charm is their fathomless depth, their unassumingloveliness. " Poems constructed with great artistic skill do not occur. Here and there a modest bud of lyric poesy shyly raises its head, likethe following couplet, describing a celebrated but ill-favored rabbi:

 "Without charm of form and face. But a mind of rarest grace. "

Over the grave of the same teacher the Talmud wails:

 "The Holy Land did beautify what womb of Shinar gave; And now Tiberias' tear-filled eye weeps o'er her treasure's grave. "

On seeing the dead body of the Patriarch Yehuda, a rabbi laments:

 "Angels strove to win the testimony's ark. Men they overcame; lo! vanished is the ark!"

Another threnody over some prince in the realm of the intellect:

 "The cedar hath by flames been seized; Can hyssop then be saved? Leviathan with hook was caught; Alas! ye little fish! The deep and mighty stream ran dry, Ah woe! ye shallow brooks!"

Nor is humor lacking. "Ah, hamper great, with books well-filled, thou'rtgone!" is a bookworm's eulogy. 

Poets naturally have not been slow to avail themselves of the materialstored in the Haggada. Many of its treasures, tricked out in modernverse, have been given to the world. The following are samples:[16]

 BIRTH AND DEATH

 "His hands fast clenched, his fingers firmly clasped, So man this life begins. He claims earth's wealth, and constitutes himself The heir of all her gifts. He thinks his hand may snatch and hold Whatever life doth yield. 

 But when at last the end has come, His hands are open wide, No longer closed. He knoweth now full well, That vain were all his hopes. He humbly says, 'I go, and nothing take Of all my hands have wrought. '"

The next, "Interest and Usury, " may serve to give the pertinaciousopponent of the Talmud a better opinion of its position on financialsubjects:

 "Behold! created things of every kind Lend each to each. The day from night doth take, And night from day; nor do they quarrel make Like men, who doubting one another's mind, E'en while they utter friendly words, think ill. The moon delighted helps the starry host, And each returns her gift without a boast. 'Tis only when the Lord supreme doth will That earth in gloom shall be enwrapped, He tells the moon: 'Refrain, keep back thy light!' And quenches, too, the myriad lamps of night. From wisdom's fount hath knowledge ofttimes lapped, While wisdom humbly doth from knowledge learn. The skies drop blessings on the grateful earth, And she--of precious store there is no dearth-- Exhales and sends aloft a fair return. Stern law with mercy tempers its decree, And mercy acts with strength by justice lent. Good deeds are based on creed from heaven sent, In which, in turn, the sap of deeds must be. Each creature borrows, lends, and gives with love, Nor e'er disputes, to honor God above. 

 When man, howe'er, his fellowman hath fed, Then 'spite the law forbidding interest, He thinketh naught but cursèd gain to wrest. Who taketh usury methinks hath said: 'O Lord, in beauty has Thy earth been wrought! But why should men for naught enjoy its plains? Ask usance, since 'tis Thou that sendest rains. Have they the trees, their fruits, and blossoms bought? For all they here enjoy, Thy int'rest claim: For heaven's orbs that shine by day and night, Th' immortal soul enkindled by Thy light, And for the wondrous structure of their frame. ' But God replies: 'Now come, and see! I give With open, bounteous hand, yet nothing take; The earth yields wealth, nor must return ye make. But know, O men, that only while ye live, You may enjoy these gifts of my award. The capital's mine, and surely I'll demand The spirit in you planted by my hand, And also earth will claim her due reward. ' Man's dust to dust is gathered in the grave, His soul returns to God who gracious gave. "

R. Yehuda ben Zakkaï answers his pupils who ask:

 "Why doth the Law with them more harshly deal That filch a lamb from fold away, Than with the highwaymen who shameless steal Thy purse by force in open day?"

 "Because in like esteem the brigands hold The master and his serving man. Their wickedness is open, frank, and bold, They fear not God, nor human ban. 

 The thief feels more respect for earthly law Than for his heav'nly Master's eye, Man's presence flees in fear and awe, Forgets he's seen by God on high. "

That is a glimpse of the world of the Haggada--a wonderful, fantasticworld, a kaleidoscopic panorama of enchanting views. "Well can weunderstand the distress of mind in a mediæval divine, or even in amodern _savant_, who, bent upon following the most subtle windings ofsome scientific debate in the Talmudical pages--geometrical, botanical, financial, or otherwise--as it revolves round the Sabbath journey, theraising of seeds, the computation of tithes and taxes--feels, as itwere, the ground suddenly give way. The loud voices grow thin, the doorsand walls of the school-room vanish before his eyes, and in their placeuprises Rome the Great, the _Urbs et Orbis_ and her million-voiced life. Or the blooming vineyards round that other City of Hills, Jerusalem theGolden herself, are seen, and white-clad virgins move dreamily amongthem. Snatches of their songs are heard, the rhythm of their choricdances rises and falls: it is the most dread Day of Atonement itself, which, in poetical contrast, was chosen by the 'Rose of Sharon' as a dayof rejoicing to walk among those waving lily-fields and vine-cladslopes. Or the clarion of rebellion rings high and shrill through thecomplicated debate, and Belshazzar, the story of whose ghastly banquetis told with all the additions of maddening horror, is doing service forNero the bloody; or Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian tyrant, and all hishosts, are cursed with a yelling curse--_à propos_ of some utterlyinappropriate legal point, while to the initiated he stands for Titusthe--at last exploded--'Delight of Humanity. ' . . . Often--far too oftenfor the interests of study and the glory of the human race--does thesteady tramp of the Roman cohort, the password of the revolution, theshriek and clangor of the bloody field, interrupt these debates, andthe arguing masters and disciples don their arms, and, with the cry, 'Jerusalem and Liberty, ' rush to the fray. "[17] Such is the world of theTalmud. 

THE JEW IN THE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION[18]

In the childhood of civilization, the digging of wells was regarded asbeneficent work. Guide-posts, visible from afar, marked their position, and hymns were composed, and solemn feasts celebrated, in honor of theevent. One of the choicest bits of early Hebrew poetry is a song of thewell. The soul, in grateful joy, jubilantly calls to her mates: "Arise!sing a song unto the well! Well, which the princes have dug, which thenobles of the people have hollowed out. "[19] This house, too, is aguide-post to a newly-found well of humanity and culture, a monument toour faithfulness and zeal in the recognition and the diffusion of truth. A scene like this brings to my mind the psalmist's beautiful words:[20]"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell togetherin unity. It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran downupon the beard, even Aaron's beard, that went down to the skirts of hisgarment; as the dew of Hermon, running down upon the mountains of Zion;for there hath the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore. "

Wondrous thoughts veiled with wondrous imagery! The underlying meaningwill lead us to our feast of the well, our celebration in honor ofnewly-discovered waters. Our order is based upon the conviction that allmen should be banded together for purposes of humanity. But what ishumanity? Not philanthropy, not benevolence, not charity: it is "humanculture risen to the stage on which man is conscious of universalbrotherhood, and strives for the realization of the general good. " Inearly times, leaders of men were anointed with oil, symbol of wisdom anddivine inspiration. Above all it was meet that it be used in theconsecration of priests, the exponents of the divine spirit and the Law. The psalmist's idea is, that as the precious ointment in its abundanceruns down Aaron's beard to the hem of his garment, even so shall wisdomand the divine spirit overflow the lips of priests, the guides, friends, and teachers of the people, the promoters of the law of peace and love. 

"As the dew of Hermon, running down upon the mountains of Zion!" Highabove all mountains towers Hermon, its crest enveloped by clouds andcovered with eternal snow. From that supernal peak grateful dew tricklesdown, fructifying the land once "flowing with milk and honey. " From itsclefts gushes forth Jordan, mightiest stream of the land, watering abroad plain in its course. In this guise the Lord has granted Hisblessing to the land, the blessing of civilization and materialprosperity, from which spring as corollaries the duties of charity anduniversal humanity. 

A picture of the olden time this, a lodge-address of the days of thepsalm singers. Days flee, time abides; men pass away, mankind endures. Filled with time-honored thoughts, inspired by the hopes of by-gonegenerations, striving for the goal of noble men in all ages, like thepsalm singers in the days of early culture, we celebrate a feast of thewell by reviewing the past and looking forward down the avenues of time. 

Less than fifty years ago a band of energetic, loyal Jews, on the otherside of the Atlantic, founded our beloved Order. Now it has establisheditself in every part of the world, from the extreme western coast ofAmerica to the blessed meadows of the Jordan; yea, even the Holy Land, unfurling everywhere the banner of charity, brotherly love, and unity, and seeking to spread education and culture, the forerunners ofhumanity. Judaism, mark you, is the religion of humanity. By far toolate for our good and that of mankind, we began to proclaim this truthwith becoming energy and emphasis, and to demonstrate it with thejoyousness of conviction. The question is, are we permeated with thisconviction? Our knowledge of Judaism is slight; we have barely asuspicion of what in the course of centuries, nay, of thousands ofyears, it has done for the progress of civilization. In my estimation, our house-warming cannot more fittingly be celebrated than by taking abird's-eye view of Jewish culture. 

The Bible is the text-book of general literature. Out of the Bible, moreparticularly from the Ten Commandments, flashed from Sinai, mankindlearned its first ethical lesson in a system which still satisfies itsneeds. To convey even a faint idea of what the Bible has done forcivilization, morality, and the literature of every people--of theinnumerable texts it has furnished to poets, and subjects topainters--would in itself require a literature. 

The conflicts with surrounding nations to which they were exposed madethe Jews concentrate their forces, and so enabled them to wagesuccessful war with nations mightier than themselves. Their heroismunder the Maccabees and under Bar-Kochba, in the middle ages and inmodern days, permits them to take rank among the most valiant inhistory. A historian of literature, a non-Jew, enumerates three factorsconstituting Jews important agents in the preservation and revival oflearning:[21] First, their ability as traders. The Phoenicians areregarded as the oldest commercial nation, but the Jews contested thepalm with them. Zebulon and Asher in very early times were seafaringtribes. Under Solomon, Israelitish vessels sailed as far as Ophir tobring Afric's gold to Jerusalem. Before the destruction of the HolyCity, Jewish communities established themselves on the westernmost coastof Europe. "The whole of the known world was covered with theirsettlements, in constant communication with one another throughitinerant merchants, who effected an exchange of learning as well as ofwares; while the other nations grew more and more isolated, and shutthemselves off from even the sparse opportunities of mental culture thenavailable. "

The second factor conducing to mental advancement was the schools whichhave flourished in Israel since the days of the prophet Samuel; and thethird was the linguistic attainments of the Jews, which they owed tonatural ability in this direction. Scarcely had Greek allied itself withHebrew thought, when Jews in Alexandria wrote Greek comparable withPlato's, and not more than two hundred years after the settlement ofJews in Arabia we meet with a large number of Jewish poets amongMohammed's disciples, while in the middle ages they taught and wroteArabic, Spanish, French, and German--versatility naturally favorable tointellectual progress. 

Jewish influence may be said to have begun to exercise itself upongeneral culture when Judaism and Hellenism met for the first time. Theresult of the meeting was the new product, Judæo-Hellenic literature. Greek civilization was attractive to Jews. The new ideas werepopularized for all strata of the people to imbibe. Shortly before theold pagan world crumbled, Hellenism enjoyed a beautiful, unexpectedrevival in Alexandria. There, strange to say, Judaism, in its homeantagonistic to Hellenism, had filled and allied itself with the Greekspirit. Its literature gradually adopted Greek traditions, and the ripefruit of the union was the Jewish-Alexandrian religious philosophy, themediation between two sharply contradictory systems, for the first timebrought into close juxtaposition, and requiring some such new element toharmonize them. When ancient civilization in Judæa and in Hellas fellinto decay, human endeavor was charged with the task of reconcilingthese two great historical forces diametrically opposed to each other, and the first attempt looking to this end was inspired by a Jewishgenius, Jesus of Nazareth. 

The Jews of Alexandria were engaged in widespread trade and shipping, and they counted among them artists, poets, civil officers, andmechanics. They naturally acquired Greek customs, and along with themHellenic vices. The bacchanalia of Athens were enthusiastically imitatedin Jerusalem, and, as a matter of course, in Alexandria. This pointreached, Roman civilization asserted itself, and the people sought toaffiliate with their Roman victors, while the rabbis devoted themselvesto the Law, not, however, to the exclusion of scientific work. In theranks of physicians and astronomers we find Jewish masters and Jewishdisciples. Medicine has always been held in high esteem by Jews, andSamuel could justly boast before his contemporaries that the intricatecourses of the stars were as well known to him as the streets ofNehardea in Babylonia. [22]

The treasures of information on pedagogics, medicine, jurisprudence, astronomy, geography, zoology, botany, and last, though not least, ongeneral history, buried in the Talmud, have hitherto not been valued attheir true worth. The rabbis of the Talmud stood in the front ranks ofculture. They compiled a calendar, in complete accord with the Metoniccycle, which modern science must declare faultless. Their classificationof the bones of the human body varies but little from present results ofthe science of anatomy, and the Talmud demonstrates that certain Mishnaordinances are based upon geometrical propositions, which could havebeen known to but few mathematicians of that time. Rabbi Gamaliel, saidto have made use of a telescope, was celebrated as a mathematician andastronomer, and in 289 C. E. , Rabbi Joshua is reported to havecalculated the orbit of Halley's comet. 

The Roman conquest of Palestine effected a change in the condition ofthe Jews. Never before had Judah undergone such torture and suffering asunder the sceptre of Rome. The misery became unendurable, and internaldisorders being added to foreign oppression, the luckless insurrectionbroke out which gave the deathblow to Jewish nationality, and droveJudah into exile. On his thorny martyr's path he took naught with himbut a book--his code, his law. Yet how prodigal his contributions tomankind's fund of culture!

About five hundred years later Judah saw springing up on his own soil anew religion which appropriated the best and the most beautiful of hisspiritual possessions. Swiftly rose the vast political and intellectualstructure of Mohammedan power, and as before with Greek, so Jewishthought now allied itself with Arabic endeavor, bringing forth in Spainthe golden age of neo-Hebraic literature in the spheres of poetry, metaphysical speculation, and every department of scientific research. It is not an exaggerated estimate to say that the middle ages sustainedthemselves with the fruit of this intellectual labor, which, moreover, has come down as a legacy to our modern era. Two hundred years afterMohammed, the same language, Arabic, was spoken by the Jews of Kairwanand those of Bagdad. Thus equipped, they performed in a remarkable waythe task allotted them by their talents and their circumstances, towhich they had been devoting themselves with singular zeal for twocenturies. The Jews are missioned mediators between the Orient and theOccident, and their activity as such, illustrated by their additions togeneral culture and science, is of peculiar interest. In the periodunder consideration, their linguistic accomplishments fitted them toassist the Syrians in making Greek literature accessible to the Arabicmind. In Arabic literature itself, they attained to a prominent place. Modern research has not yet succeeded in shedding light upon thedevelopment and spread of science among the Arabs under the tutelage ofSyrian Christians. But out of the obscurity of Greek-Arabic culturebeginnings gleam Jewish names, whose possessors were the teachers ofeager Arabic disciples. Barely fifty years after the hosts of theProphet had conquered the Holy Land, a Jew of Bassora translated fromSyriac into Arabic the pandects by the presbyter Aaron, a famous medicalwork of the middle ages. In the annals of the next century, among theearly contributors to Arabic literature, we meet with the names of Jewsas translators of medical, mathematical, and astronomical works, and asgrammarians, astronomers, scientists, and physicians. A Jew translatedPtolemy's "Almagest"; another assisted in the first translation of theIndian fox fables (_Kalila we-Dimna_); the first furnishing the middleages with the basis of their astronomical science, the second supplyingEuropean poets with literary material. Through the instrumentality ofJews, Arabs became acquainted as early as the eighth century, some timebefore the learning of the Greeks was brought within their reach, withIndian medicine, astronomy, and poetry. Greek science itself they owedto Jewish mediation. Not only among Jews, but also among Greeks, Syrians, and Arabs, Jewish versatility gave currency to the belief that"all wisdom is of the Jews, " a view often repeated by Hellenists, by the"Righteous Brethren" among the Arabs, and later by the Christian monksof Europe. 

The academies of the Jews have always been pervaded by a scientificspirit. As they influenced others, so they permitted the science andculture of their neighbors to act upon their life and work. There is nodoubt, for instance, that, despite the marked difference between thesubjects treated by Arabs and Jews, the peculiar qualities of the oldArabic lyrics shaped neo-Hebraic poetry. Again, as the Hebrew acrosticpsalms demonstrably served as models to the older Syrian Church poets, so, in turn, Syriac psalmody probably became the pattern synagoguepoetry followed. Thus Hebrew poetry completed a circuit, which, to besure, cannot accurately be followed up through its historical stages, but which critical investigations and the comparative study ofliteratures have established almost as a certainty. 

In the ninth century a bold, venturesome traveller, Eldad ha-Dani, [23] asort of Jewish Ulysses, appeared among Jews, and at the same timeJudaism produced Sa'adia, its first great religious philosopher andBible translator. The Church Fathers had always looked up to the rabbisas authorities; henceforth Jews were accepted by all scholars as theteachers of Bible exegesis. Sa'adia was the first of the rabbis totranslate the Hebrew Scriptures into Arabic. Justly his work is said to"recognize the current of thought dominant in his time, and to expressthe newly-awakened desire for the reconciliation of religious practice, as developed in the course of generations, with the source of religiousinspiration. " Besides, he was the first to elaborate a system ofreligious philosophy according to a rigid plan, and in a strictlyscientific spirit. [24] Knowing Greek speculations, he controverts themas vigorously as the _Kalâm_ of Islam philosophy. His teachings form asystem of practical ethics, luminous reflections, and sound maxims. Among his contemporaries was Isaac Israeli, a physician at Kairwan, whose works, in their Latin translation by the monk Constantine, attained great reputation, and were later plagiarized by medicalwriters. His treatise on fever was esteemed of high worth, a translationof it being studied as a text-book for centuries, and his dieteticwritings remained authoritative for five hundred years. In general, themedical science of the Arabs is under great obligations to him. Reverence for Jewish medical ability was so exaggerated in those daysthat Galen was identified with the Jewish sage Gamaliel. The error wasfostered in the _Sefer Asaf_, a curious medical fragment of uncertainauthorship and origin, by its rehearsal of an old Midrash, which tracesthe origin of medicine to Shem, son of Noah, who received it fromangels, and transmitted it to the ancient Chaldeans, they in turnpassing it on to the Egyptians, Greeks, and Arabs. 

Though the birth of medicine is not likely to have taken place amongJews, it is indisputable that physicians of the Jewish race are largelyto be credited with the development of medical science at every period. At the time we speak of, Jews in Egypt, northern Africa, Italy, Spain, France, and Germany were physicians in ordinary to caliphs, emperors, and popes, and everywhere they are represented among medical writers. The position occupied in the Arabian world by Israeli, in the Occidentwas occupied by Sabattaï Donnolo, one of the Salerno school in its earlyobscure days, the author of a work on _Materia medica_, possibly theoldest original production on medicine in the Hebrew language. 

The period of Jewish prosperity in Spain has been called a fairy visionof history. The culture developed under its genial influences pervadedthe middle ages, and projected suggestions even into our modern era. Oneof the most renowned _savants_ at the beginning of the period was thestatesman Chasdaï ben Shaprut, whose translation of Dioscorides's "PlantLore" served as the botanical textbook of mediæval Europe. The firstpoet was Solomon ibn Gabirol, the author of "The Source of Life, " asystematic exposition of Neoplatonic philosophy, a book of most curiousfortunes. Through the Latin translation, made with the help of anapostate Jew, and bearing the author's name in the mutilated form ofAvencebrol, later changed into Avicebron, scholasticism became saturatedwith its philosophic ideas. The pious fathers of Christian philosophy, Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, took pains to refute them, whileDuns Scotus and Giordano Bruno frequently consulted the work as anauthority. In the struggle between the Scotists and the Thomists it hada prominent place as late as the fourteenth century, the contestantstaking it to be the work of some great Christian philosopher standing onthe threshold of the Occident and at the portals of philosophy. So ithappened that the author came down through the centuries, recognized bynone, forgotten by his own, until, in our time, behind theMoorish-Christian mask of Avencebrol, Solomon Munk discovered the Jewishthinker and poet Solomon ibn Gabirol. 

The work _De Causis_, attributed to David, a forgotten Jewishphilosopher, must be classed with Gabirol's "Source of Life, " on accountof its Neoplatonism and its paramount influence upon scholasticism. Infact, only by means of a searching analysis of these two works caninsight be gained into the development and aberrations of the dogmaticsystem of mediæval philosophy. 

Other sciences, too, especially mathematics, flourished among them. Onecentury after he wrote them, the works of Abraham ibn Ezra, renowned asan astronomer and mathematician, were translated into Latin by Italians, among whom his prestige was so great that, as may still be seen, he waspainted among the expounders of mathematical science in an Italianchurch fresco representing the seven liberal arts. Under the nameAbraham Judæus, later corrupted into Avenare, he is met with throughoutthe middle ages. Abraham ben Chiya, another distinguished scientist, known by the name Savasorda, compiled the first systematic outline ofastronomy, and in his geographical treatise, he explained the sphericityof the earth, while the Latin translation of his geometry, based onArabic sources, proves him to have made considerable additions to thestock of knowledge in this branch. Moses Maimuni's intellectual vigor, and his influence upon the schoolmen through his medical, and moreparticularly his religio-philosophical works, are too well known to needmore than passing mention. 

Even in southern France and in Germany, whither the light of culture didnot spread so rapidly as in Spain, Jews participated in the developmentof the sciences. Solomon ben Isaac, called Rashi, the great exegete, waslooked up to as an authority by others beside his brethren in faith. Nicolas de Lyra, one of the most distinguished Christian Bible exegetes, confesses that his simple explanations of Scriptural passages arederived pre-eminently from Rashi's Bible commentary, and amongscientific men it is acknowledged that precisely in the matter ofexegesis this French monk exercised decisive influence upon MartinLuther. So it happens that in places Luther's Bible translation revealsRashi seen through Nicolas de Lyra's spectacles. 

In the quickened intellectual life of Provence Jews also took activepart. David Kimchi has come to be regarded as the teacher _parexcellence_ of Hebrew grammar and lexicography, and Judah ibn Tibbon, one of the most notable of translators, in his testament addressed tohis son made a complete presentation of contemporary science, acyclopædia of the Arabic and the Hebrew language and literature, grammar, poetry, botany, zoology, natural history, and particularlyreligious philosophy, the studies of the Bible and the Talmud. 

The golden age of letters was followed by a less creative period, asignificant turning-point in the history of Judaism as of spiritualprogress in general. The contest between tradition and philosophyaffected every mind. Literature was widely cultivated; each of itsdepartments found devotees. The European languages were studied, andconnections established between the literatures of the nations. Hardly aspiritual current runs through the middle ages without, in some way, affecting Jewish culture. It is the irony of history that puts among theforty proscribers of the Talmud assembled at Paris in the thirteenthcentury the Dominican Albertus Magnus, who, in his successful efforts todivert scholastic philosophy into new channels, depended entirely uponthe writings and translations of the very Jews he was helping topersecute. Schoolmen were too little conversant with Greek to readAristotle in the original, and so had to content themselves withaccepting the Judæo-Arabic construction put upon the Greek sage'steachings. 

Besides acting as intermediaries, Jews made original contributions toscholastic philosophy. For instance, Maimonides, the first to reconcileAristotle's teachings with biblical theology, was the originator of themethod adopted by schoolmen in the case of Aristotelian principles atvariance with their dogmas. Frederick II. , the liberal emperor, employedJewish scholars and translators at his court; among them Jacob benAbba-Mari ben Anatoli, to whom an annuity was paid for translatingAristotelian works. Michael Scotus, the imperial astrologer, was hisintimate friend. His contemporaries were chiefly popular philosophers ormystics, excepting only the prominent Provençal Jacob ben Machir, orProfatius Judæus, as he was called, a member of the Tibbon family oftranslators. His observations on the inclination of the earth's axiswere used later by Copernicus as the basis of further investigations. Hewas a famous teacher at the Montpellier academy, which reminds me tomention that Jews were prominently identified with the founding and thesuccess of the medical schools at Montpellier and Salerno, they, indeed, being almost the only physicians in all parts of the known world. Salerno, in turn, suggests Italy, where at that period translations weremade from Latin into Hebrew. Hillel ben Samuel, for instance, the samewho carried on a lively philosophic correspondence with anotherdistinguished Jew, Maestro Isaac Gayo, the pope's physician, translatedsome of Thomas Aquinas's writings, Bruno di Lungoburgo's book onsurgery, and various other works, from Latin into Hebrew. 

These successors of the great intellects of the golden age ofneo-Hebraic literature, thoroughly conversant with Arabic literature, busied themselves with rendering accessible to literary Europe thetreasury of Indian and Greek fables. Their translations and compilationshave peculiar value in the history of literary development. During themiddle ages, when the memory of ancient literature had perished, theywere the means of preserving the romances, fairy tales, and fables thathave descended, by way of Spain and Arabia, from classical antiquityand the many-hued Oriental world to our modern literatures. Between theeleventh and the thirteenth century, the foundations were laid for ournarrative literature, demonstrating the importance of delight in fablelore, stories of travel, and all sorts of narratives, for to it we owethe creation of new and the transformation of old, literary forms. 

In Germany at that time, a Jewish minnesinger and strolling minstrel, Süsskind von Trimberg, went up and down the land, from castle to castle, with the poets' guild; while Santob di Carrion, a Jewish troubadour, ventured to impart counsel and moral lessons to the Castilian king DonPedro before his assembled people. A century later, another Jew, SamsonPnie, of Strasburg, lent his assistance to the two German poets at workupon the continuation of _Parzival_. The historians of German literaturehave not laid sufficient stress upon the share of the Jews, heavilyoppressed and persecuted though they were, in the creation of nationalepics and romances of chivalry from the thirteenth to the fifteenthcentury. German Jews, being more than is generally recognized diligentreaders of the poets, were well acquainted with the drift of mediævalpoetry, and to this familiarity a new department of Jewish literatureowed its rise and development. It is said that a Hebrew version of theArthurian cycle was made as early as the thirteenth century, and at theend of the period we run across epic poems on Bible characters, composedin the _Nibelungen_ metre, in imitation of old German legend lore andnational poetry. 

If German Jews found heart for literary interests, it may be assumed asa matter of course that Spanish and Provençal Jews participated in theadvancement of their respective national literatures and in Troubadourpoetry. In these countries, too, the new taste for popular literature, especially in the form of fables, was made to serve moral ends. A Jew, Berachya ben Natronaï, was the precursor of Marie de France, the famousFrench fabulist, and La Fontaine and Lessing are indebted to him forsome of their material. As in the case of Aristotelian philosophy and ofGreek and Arabic medical science, Jews assumed the rôle of mediators inthe transmission of fables. Indian fables reached their Arabic guiseeither directly or by way of Persian and Greek; thence they passed intoHebrew and Latin translations, and through these last forms became theproperty of the European languages. For instance, the Hebrew translationof the old Sanskrit fox fables was the one of greatest service inliterary evolution. The translator of the fox fables is credited alsowith the translation of the romance of "The Seven Wise Masters, " underthe title _Mishlé Sandabar_. These two works gave the impetus to a greatseries in Occidental literature, and it seems altogether probable thatEurope's first acquaintance with them dates from their Hebrewtranslation. 

In Arabic poetry, too, many a Jew deservedly attained to celebrity. Abraham ibn Sahl won such renown that the Arabs, notorious forparsimony, gave ten gold pieces for one of his songs. Other poets havecome down to us by name, and Joseph Ezobi, whom Reuchlin calls _Judæorumpoeta dulcissimus_, went so far as to extol Arabic beyond Hebrew poetry. He was the first to pronounce the dictum famous in Buffon's repetition:"The style is the man himself. " Provence, the land of song, producedKalonymos ben Kalonymos (Maestro Calo), known to his brethren in faithnot only as a poet, but also as a scholar, whose Hebrew translationsfrom the Arabic are of most important works on philosophy, medicine, andmathematics. As Anatoli had worked under Emperor Frederick II. , soKalonymos was attached to Robert of Naples, patron of Jewish scholars. At the same time with the Spanish and the German minstrel, thereflourished in Rome Immanuel ben Solomon, the friend of Dante, upon whosedeath he wrote an Italian sonnet, and whose _Divina Commedia_ inspired apart of his poetical works also describing a visit to paradise and hell. 

With the assiduous cultivation of romantic poetry, which was graduallyusurping the place of moral romances and novels, grew the importance ofOriental legends and traditions, so pregnant with literary suggestions. This is attested by the use made of the Hebrew translation of Indianfables mentioned before, and of the famous collection of tales, the_Disciplina clericalis_ by the baptized Jew Petrus Alphonsus. The Jewsnaturally introduced many of their own peculiar traditions, and thus canbe explained the presence of tales from the Talmud and the Midrash inour modern fairy tale books. 

It is necessary to note again that the Jews in turn submitted to theinfluence of foreign literatures. Immanuel Romi, for example, at hisbest, is an exponent of Provençal versification and scholasticphilosophy, while his lapses testify to the self-complacency and levitycharacteristic of the times. Yehuda Romano, one of his contemporaries, is said to have been teacher to the king of Naples. He was the first Jewto attain to a critical appreciation of the vagaries of scholasticism, but his claim to mention rests upon his translations from the Latin. 

As Jews assisted at the birth of Arabic, French, and German, so theyhave a share in the beginnings of Spanish, literature. Jews must becredited with the first "Chronicle of the Cid, " with the romance, _ComteLyonnais, Palanus_, with the first collection of tales, the first chesspoems, and the first troubadour songs. Again, the oldest collection ofthe last into a _cancionera_ was made by the Jew Juan Alfonso de Bæna. 

Even distant Persia has proofs to show of Jewish ability and energy inthose days. One Jew composed an epic on a biblical subject in thePersian language, another translated the Psalms into the vernacular. 

The most prominent Jewish exponent of philosophy in this age ofstrenuous interest in metaphysical speculations and contests was Leviben Gerson (Leon di Bannolas), theologian, scientist, physician, andastronomer. One of his ancestors, Gerson ben Solomon, had written a worktypical of the state of the natural sciences in his day. Levi benGerson's chief work became famous not among Jews alone. It was referredto in words of praise by Pico della Mirandola, Reuchlin, Kepler, andother Christian thinkers. He was the inventor of an astronomicalinstrument, a description of which was translated into Latin at theexpress command of Pope Clement VI. , and carefully studied by Kepler. Besides, Levi ben Gerson was the author of an arithmetical work. Inthose days, in fact up to the seventeenth century, there was but a faintdividing line between astronomy and mathematics, as between medicine andnatural history. John of Seville was a notable mathematician, thecompiler of a practical arithmetic, the first to make mention of decimalfractions, which possibly may have been his invention, and in the Zohar, the text-book of mediæval Jewish mysticism, which appeared centuriesbefore Copernicus's time, the cause of the succession of day and nightis stated to be the earth's revolution on its axis. 

In this great translation period scarcely a single branch of humanscience escaped the mental avidity of Jews. They found worthy oftranslation such essays as "Rules for the Shoeing and Care of Horses inRoyal Stables" and "The Art of Carving and Serving at Princely Boards. "Translations of works on scholasticism now took rank beside those fromGreek and Arabic philosophers, and to translations from the Arabic intoHebrew were added translations from and into Latin, or even into thevernacular idiom wherever literary forms had developed. The boldassertion can be made good that not a single prominent work of ancientscience was left untranslated. On the other hand it is hard to speculatewhat would have been the fate of these treasures of antiquity withoutJewish intermediation. Doubtless an important factor in the work was theencouragement given Jewish scholars by enlightened rulers, such asEmperor Frederick II. , Charles and Robert of Anjou, Jayme I. Of Aragon, and Alfonso X. Of Castile, and by popes, and private patrons oflearning. Mention has been made of Jewish contributions to the work ofthe medical schools of Montpellier and Salerno. Under Jayme I. Christianand Jewish savants of Barcelona worked together harmoniously to promotethe cause of civilization and culture in their native land. The first touse the Catalan dialect for literary purposes was the Jew Yehuda benAstruc, and under Alfonso (X. ) the Wise, Jews again attained toprominence in the king's favorite science of astronomy. The AlfonsineTables were chiefly the work of Isaac ibn Sid, a Toledo _chazan_(precentor). In general, the results reached by Jewish scholarship atAlfonso's court were of the utmost importance, having been largelyinstrumental in establishing in the age of Tycho de Brahe and Kepler thefundamental principles of astronomy and a correct view of the orbits ofthe heavenly bodies. Equal suggestiveness characterizes Jewish researchin mathematics, a science to which, rising above the level ofintermediaries and translators, Jews made original contributions ofimportance, the first being Isaac Israeli's "The Foundation of theUniverse. " Basing his observations on Maimuni's and Abraham ben Chiya'sstatement of the sphericity of the earth, Israeli showed that theheavenly bodies do not seem to occupy the place in which they wouldappear to an observer at the centre of the earth, and that the twopositions differ by a certain angle, since known as parallax in theterminology of science. To Judah Hakohen, a scholar in correspondencewith Alfonso the Wise, is ascribed the arrangement of the stars inforty-eight constellations, and to another Jew, Esthori Hafarchi, we owethe first topographical description of Palestine, whither he emigratedwhen the Jews were expelled from France by Philip the Fair. 

Meanwhile the condition of the Jews, viewed from without and fromwithin, had become most pitiable. The Kabbala lured into her charmedcircle the strongest Jewish minds. Scientific aspirations seemedcompletely extinguished. Even the study of the Talmud was abandoningsimple, undistorted methods of interpretation, and espousing thehairsplitting dialectics of the northern French school. Synagogue poetrywas languishing, and general culture found no votaries among Jews. Occasionally only the religious disputations between Jews and Christiansinduced some few to court acquaintance with secular branches oflearning. In the fourteenth century Chasdaï Crecas was the onlyphilosopher with an original system, which in its arguments on freewill and the nature of God anticipated the views of one greater thanhimself, who, however, had a different purpose in view. That later andgreater philosopher, to whom the world is indebted for the evangel ofmodern life, was likewise a Jew, a descendant of Spanish-Jewishfugitives. His name is Baruch Spinoza. 

However sad their fortunes, the literature of the Jews never entirelyeschewed the consideration of subjects of general interest. Thisreceives curious confirmation from the re-introduction of SolomonGabirol's peculiar views into Jewish religious philosophy, by way ofChristian scholasticism, as formulated especially by Thomas Aquinas, the_Doctor angelicus_. 

The Renaissance and the humanistic movement also reveal Jewishinfluences at work. The spirit of liberty abroad in the earth passedthrough the halls of Israel, clearing the path thenceforth to be troddenby men. Again the learned were compelled to engage the good offices ofthe Jews, the custodians of biblical antiquity. The invention of theprinting press acted as a wonderful stimulus to the development ofJewish literature. The first products of the new machine were Hebrewworks issued in Italy and Spain. Among the promoters of the Renaissance, and one of the most thorough students of religio-philosophical systems, was Elias del Medigo, the friend of Pico della Mirandola, and the umpirechosen by the quarrelling factions in the University of Padua. JohnReuchlin, chief of the humanists, was taught Hebrew by Obadiah Sforno, a _savant_ of profound scholarship, who dedicated his "Commentary onEcclesiastes" to Henry II. Of France. Abraham de Balmes was a teacher atthe universities of Padua and Salerno, and physician in ordinary toCardinal Dominico Grimani. The Kabbala was made accessible to the heroesof the Renaissance by Jochanan Alemanno, of Mantua, and there is pathosin the urgency with which Reuchlin entreats Jacob Margoles, rabbi ofNuremberg, to send him Kabbalistic writings in addition to those in hispossession. Reuchlin's good offices to the Jews--his defense of themagainst the attacks of obscurantists--are a matter of general knowledge. Among the teachers of the humanists who revealed to them the treasuresof biblical literature the most prominent was Elias Levita, theintroducer, through his disciples Sebastian Münster and Paul Fagius, ofHebrew studies into Germany. He may be accounted a true humanist, agenuine exponent of the Renaissance. His Jewish coadjutors were JudahAbrabanel (Leo Hebræus), whose chief work was _Dialoghi di Amore_, anexposition of the Neoplatonism then current in Italy; Jacob Mantino, physician to Pope Paul III. ; Bonet di Lattes, known as a writer onastronomical subjects, and the inventor of an astronomical instrument;and a number of others. 

While in Italy the Spanish-Jewish exiles fell into line in theRenaissance movement, the large numbers of them that sought refuge inPortugal turned their attention chiefly to astronomical research and tovoyages of discovery and adventure, the national enterprises of theirprotectors. João II. Employed Jews in investigations tending to makereasonably safe the voyages, on trackless seas, under unknown skies, forthe discovery of long and ardently sought passages to distant lands. Inhis commission charged with the construction of an instrument toindicate accurately the course of a vessel, the German knight MartinBehaim was assisted by Jews--astronomers, metaphysicians, andphysicians--chief among them Joseph Vecinho, distinguished for his partin the designing of the artificial globe, and Pedro di Carvallho, navigator, whose claim to praise rests upon his improvement of Leib's_Astrologium_, and to censure, upon his abetment of the king when herefused the request of the bold Genoese Columbus to fit out a squadronfor the discovery of wholly unknown lands. But when Columbus's plansfound long deferred realization in Spain, a Jewish youth, Luis deTorres, embarked among the ninety adventurers who accompanied him. Vascoda Gama likewise was aided in his search for a waterway to the Indies bya Jew, the pilot Gaspar, the same who later set down in writing thescientific results of the voyage, and two Jews were despatched toexplore the coasts of the Red Sea and the island of Ormus in the PersianGulf. Again, Vasco da Gama's plans were in part made with the valuableassistance of a Jew, a profound scholar, Abraham Zacuto, sometimeprofessor of astronomy at the University of Salamanca, and after thebanishment of Jews from Spain, astronomer and chronographer to Manuelthe Great, of Portugal. It was he that advised the king to send out DaGama's expedition, and from the first the explorer was supported by hiscounsel and scientific knowledge. 

Meritorious achievements, all of them, but they did not shield the Jewsagainst impending banishment. The exiles found asylums in Italy andHolland, and in each country they at once projected themselves into thepredominant intellectual movement. A physician, Abraham Portaleone, distinguished himself on the field of antiquarian research; another, David d'Ascoli, wrote a defense of Jews; and a third, David de Pomis, adefense of Jewish physicians. The most famous was Amatus Lusitanus, oneof whose important discoveries is said to have brought him close up tothat of the circulation of the blood. Before the banishment of Jews fromSpain took effect, Antonio di Moro, a Jewish peddler of Cordova, flourished as the last of Spanish troubadours, and Rodrigo da Cota, aneo-Christian of Seville, as the first of Spanish dramatists, thesupposed author of _Celestina_, one of the most celebrated of oldSpanish dramatic compositions. 

The proscribed, in the guise of Marranos, and under the hospitableshelter of their new homes, could not be banished from literary Spain, even in its newest departures. Indeed, for a long time Spanish andItalian literatures were brought into contact with each other onlythrough the instrumentality of Jews. Not quite half a century after theexpulsion of Jews from Portugal and their settlement in Italy, a Jew, Solomon Usque, made a Spanish translation of Petrarch (1567), dedicatedto Alessandro Farnese, duke of Parma, and wrote Italian odes, dedicatedto Cardinal Borromeo. 

At the zenith of the Renaissance, Jews won renown as Italian poets, anddid valiant work as translators from Latin into Hebrew and Italian. Inthe later days of the movement, in the Reformation period, illustriousChristian scholars studied Hebrew under Jewish tutorship, and gave it aplace on the curriculum of the universities. Luther himself submitted torabbinical guidance in his biblical studies. 

In great numbers the Spanish exiles turned to Turkey, where numerous newcommunities rapidly arose. There, too, in Constantinople and elsewhere, Jews, like Elias Mizrachi and Elias Kapsali, were the first to pursuescientific research. 

We have now reached the days of deepest misery for Judaism. Yet, in theface of unrelenting oppression, Jews win places of esteem as diplomats, custodians and advocates of important interests at royal courts. Fromthe earliest period of their history, Jews manifested special talent forthe arts of diplomacy. In the Arabic-Spanish period they exercised greatpolitical influence upon Mohammedan caliphs. The Fatimide and Omayyaddynasties employed Jewish representatives and ministers, Samuel ibnNagdela, for instance, being grand vizir of the caliph of Granada. Christian sovereigns also valued their services: as is well known, Charlemagne sent a Jewish ambassador to Haroun al Rashid; PopeAlexander III. Appointed Yechiel ben Abraham as minister of finance; andso late as in the fifteenth century the wise statesman Isaac Abrabanelwas minister to Alfonso V. , of Portugal, and, wonderful to relate, foreight years to Ferdinand and Isabella, of Spain. At this time Jewishliterature was blessed with a patron in the person of Joseph Nasi, dukeof Naxos, whom, it is said, Sultan Selim II. Wished to crown king ofCyprus. His rival was Solomon Ashkenazi, Turkish ambassador to theVenetian republic, who exercised decisive influence upon the election ofa Polish king. And this is not the end of the roll of Jewish diplomatsand ministers. 

Unfortunately, the Kabbala, whose spell was cast about even the mostvigorous of Jewish minds, was the leading intellectual current of thosesad days, the prevailing misery but serving to render her allurementsmore fascinating. But in the hands of such men as Abraham Herrera, whoinfluenced Benedict Spinoza, even Kabbalistic studies were informed witha scientific spirit, and brought into connection with Neoplatonicphilosophy. 

Mention of Spinoza suggests Holland where Jews were kindly received, andshortly after their arrival they interested themselves in thephilosophical pursuits in vogue. The best index to their position inHolland is furnished by Manasseh ben Israel's prominent rôle in thepolitics and the literary ventures of Amsterdam, and by his negotiationswith Oliver Cromwell. We may pardon the pride which made him say, "Ihave enjoyed the friendship of the wisest and the best of Europe. " UrielAcosta and Baruch Spinoza, though children of the Amsterdam_Judengasse_, were ardent patriots. 

The last great Spanish poet was Antonio Enrique de Gomez, the JewishCalderon, burnt in effigy at Seville; while the last Portuguese poet ofnote was Antonio Jose de Silva, who perished at the stake for his faith, leaving his dramas as a precious possession to Portuguese literature. 

Even in the dreariest days of decadence, when the study of the Talmudseemed to engross their attention, Jews prosecuted scientific inquiries, as witness Moses Isserles's translation of _Theorica_, an astronomicaltreatise by Peurbach, the Vienna humanist. 

With the migration of Jews eastward, _Judendeutsch_, a Jewish-Germandialect, with its literature, was introduced into Slavic countries. Itis a fact not generally known that this jargon is the depository ofcertain Middle High German expressions and elements no longer used inthe modern German, and that philologists are forced to resort to thestudy of the Polish-Jewish patois to reconstruct the old idiom. In 1523, the year of Luther's Pentateuch translation, a Jewish-German Bibledictionary was published at Cracow, and in 1540 appeared the firstJewish-German translation of the Pentateuch. The Germans stronglyinfluenced the popular literature of the Jews. The two nationalitiesseized the same subjects, often imitating the same models, or using thesame translations. The German "Till Eulenspiegel" was printed in 1500, the Jewish-German in 1600. Besides incorporating German folklore, Jewish-German writings borrowed from German romances, assimilatedforeign literatures, did not neglect the traditions of the Jewsthemselves, and embraced even folk-songs, some of which have perpetuatedthemselves until the modern era. 

Mention of the well-known fact that the Hebrew studies prosecuted byChristians in the eighteenth century were carried on under Jewishinfluence brings us to the threshold of the modern era, the period ofthe Jewish Renaissance. Here we are on well-worn ground. Since Jews havebeen permitted to enter at will upon the multifarious pursuits growingout of modern culture, their importance as factors of civilization isuniversally acknowledged, and it would be wearisome, and would fartransgress the limits of a lecture, to enumerate their achievements. 

In trying to show what share the Jew has had in the world'scivilization, I have naturally concerned myself chiefly with literature, for literature is the mirror of culture. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that the Jew has been inactive in other spheres. Hiscontributions, for instance, to the modern development of internationalcommerce, cannot be overlooked. Commerce in its modern extension was thecreation of the mercantile republics of mediæval Italy-Venice, Florence, Genoa, and Pisa--and in them Jews determined and regulated its course. When Ravenna contemplated a union with Venice, and formulated theconditions for the alliance, one of them was the demand that rich Jewsbe sent thither to open a bank for the relief of distress. Jews were thefirst to obtain the privilege of establishing banks in the Italiancities, and the first to discover the advantages of a system of checksand bills of exchange, of unique value in the development of moderncommerce. 

Even in art, a sphere from which their rigorous laws might seem to havethe effect of banishing them, they were not wholly inactive. They alwaysnumbered among themselves handicraftsmen. In Venice, in the sixteenthcentury, we find celebrated Jewish wood engravers. Jacob Weil's rulesfor slaughtering were published with vignettes by Hans Holbein, and oneof Manasseh ben Israel's works was adorned with a frontispiece byRembrandt. In our own generation Jews have won fame as painters andsculptors, while music has been their staunch companion, deserting themnot even in the darkest days of the Ghetto. 

These certainly are abundant proofs that the Jew has a share in all thephases and stages of culture, from its first germs unto its latestcomplex development--a consoling, elevating reflection. A learnedhistorian of literature, a Christian, in discussing this subject, wasprompted to say: "Our first knowledge of philosophy, botany, astronomy, and cosmography, as well as the grammar of the holy language and theresults of biblical study, we owe primarily to Jews. " Another historian, also a Christian, closes a review of Jewish national traits with thewords: "Looking back over the course of history, we find that in thegloom, bareness, and intellectual sloth of the middle ages, Jewsmaintained a rational system of agriculture, and built up internationalcommerce, upon which rests the well-being of the nations. "

Truly, there are reasons for pride on our part, but no less do greatobligations devolve upon us. I cannot refrain from exhortation. Injustice we should confess that Jews drew their love of learning andability to advance the work of civilization from Jewish writings. Furthermore, it is a fact that these Jewish writings no longer excitethe interest, or claim the devotion of Jews. I maintain that it is theduty of the members of our Order to take this neglected, lightlyesteemed literature under their protection, and secure for it theappreciation and encouragement that are the offspring of knowledge. 

Modern Judaism presents a curious spectacle. The tiniest of nationalgroups in Eastern Europe, conceiving the idea of establishing itsindependence, proceeds forthwith to create a literature, if need be, inventing and forging. Judaism possesses countless treasures ofinestimable worth, amassed by research and experience in the course ofthousands of years, and her latter-day children brush them aside withindifference, even with scorn, leaving it to the sons of the stranger, yea, their adversaries, to gather and cherish them. 

When Goethe in his old age conceived and outlined a scheme of universalliterature, the first place was assigned to Jewish literature. In hispantheon of the world's poetry, the first tone uttered was to be thatof "David's royal song and harp. " But, in general, Jewish literature isstill looked upon as the Cinderella of the world's literatures. Surely, the day will come when justice will be done, Cinderella's claim beacknowledged equal to that of her royal sisters, and together they willenter the spacious halls of the magnificent palace of literature. 

Among the prayers prescribed for the Day of Atonement is one ofsubordinate importance which affects me most solemnly. When the shadowsof evening lengthen, and the light of the sun wanes, the Jew reads the_Neïlah_ service with fervor, as though he would "burst open the portalsof heaven with his tears, " and the inmost depths of my nature arestirred with melancholy pride by the prayer of the pious Jew. Hesupplicates not for his house and his family, not for Zion dismantled, not for the restoration of the Temple, not for the advent of theMessiah, not for respite from suffering. All his sighs and hopes, allhis yearning and aspiration, are concentrated in the one thought: "Oursplendor and our glory have departed, our treasures have been snatchedfrom us; there remains nothing to us but this Law alone. " If this istrue; if naught else is left of our former state; if this Law, thisscience, this literature, are our sole treasure and best inheritance, then let us cherish and cultivate them so as to have a legacy tobequeath to our children to stand them in good stead against the comingof the _Neïlah_ of humanity, the day when brethren will "dwell togetherin unity. "

Perhaps that day is not far distant. Methinks I hear the rustling of anew spring-tide of humanity; methinks I discern the morning flush of newworld-stirring ideas, and before my mind's eye rises a bridge, overwhich pass all the nations of the earth, Israel in their midst, holdingaloft his ensign with the inscription, "The Lord is my banner!"--the onewhich he bore on every battlefield of thought, and which was neversuffered to fall into the enemy's hand. It is a mighty procession movingonward and upward to a glorious goal: "Humanity, Liberty, Love!"

WOMEN IN JEWISH LITERATURE

Among the songs of the Bible there are two, belonging to the oldestmonuments of poetry, which have preserved the power to inspire andelevate as when they were first uttered: the hymn of praise andthanksgiving sung by Moses and his sister Miriam, and the impassionedsong of Deborah, the heroine in Israel. 

Miriam and Deborah are the first Israelitish women whose melody thrilledand even now thrills us--Miriam, the inspired prophetess, pouring forthher people's joy and sorrow, and Deborah, _Esheth Lapidoth_, the Biblecalls her, "the woman of the flaming heart, " an old writer ingeniouslyinterprets the Scriptural name. They are the chosen exemplars of allwomen who, stepping across the narrow confines of home, have lifted up avoice, or wielded a pen, for Israel. The time is not yet when woman inliterature can be discussed without an introductory justification. Theprejudice is still deep-rooted which insists that domestic activity iswoman's only legitimate career, that to enter the literary arena isunwomanly, that inspired songs may drop only from male lips. Woman'sheart should, indeed, be the abode of the angels of gentleness, modesty, kindness, and patience. But no contradiction is involved in the beliefthat her mind is endowed with force and ability on occasion to grasp thespokes of fortune's wheel, or produce works which need not shrink frompublic criticism. Deborah herself felt that it would have better becomea man to fulfil the mission with which she was charged--that a cozy homehad been a more seemly place for her than the camp upon Mount Tabor. Shesays: "Desolate were the open towns in Israel, they were desolate. . . . Was there a shield seen or a spear among forty thousand in Israel?. . . I--unto the Lord will I sing. " Not until the fields of Israel weredesert, forsaken of able-bodied men, did the woman Deborah arise for theglory of God. She refused to pose as a heroine, rejected the crown ofvictory, nor coveted the poet's laurel, meet recognition of hertriumphal song. Modestly she chose the simplest yet most beautiful ofnames. She summoned the warriors to battle; the word of God wasproclaimed by her lips; she pronounced judgment, and right prevailed;her courage sustained her on the battlefield, and victory followed inher footsteps--yet neither judge, nor poetess, nor singer, norprophetess will she call herself, but only _Em beyisrael_, "a mother inIsrael. "

This heroine, this "mother in Israel, " in all the wanderings andvicissitudes of the Jewish people, was the exemplar of its women andmaidens, the especial model of Israelitish poetesses and writers. 

The student of Jewish literature is like an astronomer. While the casualobserver faintly discerns single stars dotted in the expanse of blueoverhead, he takes in the whole sweep of the heavens, readily followingthe movements of the stars of every magnitude. The history of the Jewishrace, its mere preservation during the long drawn out period ofsuffering--sad days of national dissolution and sombre middle agecenturies--is a perplexing puzzle, unless regarded with the eye offaith. But that this race, cuffed, crushed, pursued, hounded from spotto spot, should have given birth to men, yea, even women ranking high inthe realm of letters, is wholly inexplicable, unless the explanation ofthe unique phenomenon is sought in the wondrous gift of inspirationoperative in Israel even after the last seer ceased to speak. 

Judaism has preserved the Jews! Judaism, that is, the Law with itsdevelopment and ramifications of a great religious thought, was thesustaining power of the Jewish people under its burden of misery, suffering, torture, and oppression, enabling it to survive itstormentors. The Jews were the nation of hope. Like hope this people iseternal. The storms of fanaticism and race hatred may rage and roar, therace cannot be destroyed. Precisely in the days of its abjectdegradation, when its suffering was dire, how marvellous the conduct ofthis people! The conquered were greater than their conquerors. Fromtheir spiritual height they looked down compassionately on theirvictorious but ignorant adversaries, who, feeling the condescension ofthe victims, drove their irons deeper. The little nation grew only thestronger, and its religion, the flower of hope and trust, developed themore sturdily for its icy covering. Jews were mowed down by fire andsword, but Judaism continued to live. From the ashes of every pyresprang the Jewish Law in unfading youth--that indestructible, ineradicable mentality and hope, which opponents are wont to callunconquerable Jewish defiance. 

The men of this great little race were preserved by the Law, the spirit, and the influences and effects of this same Law transformed weak womeninto God-inspired martyrs, dowered the daughters of Israel with courageto sacrifice life for the glory of the God-idea confessed by theirancestors during thousands of years. Purity of morals, confidingdomesticity, were the safeguards against storm and stress. The outsideworld presented a hostile front to the Jew of the middle ages. Everystep beyond Ghetto precincts was beset with peril. So his home becamehis world, his sanctuary, in whose intimate seclusion the blossom ofpure family love unfolded. While spiritual darkness brooded over thenations, the great Messianic God-idea took refuge from the icy chill ofthe middle ages in his humble rooms, where it was cherished against thecoming of a glorious future. 

"Every Jew has the making of a Messiah in him, " says a clever modernauthor, [25] "and every Jewess of a _mater dolorosa_, " of which the firstpart is only an epigram, the second, a truth, an historic fact. Mediæval Judaism knew many "sorrowful mothers, " whose heroism passesour latter-day conception. Greece and Rome tell tales upon tales ofwomanly bravery under suffering and pain--Jewish history buries insilence the names of its thousands of woman and maiden martyrs, joyouslygiving up life in the vindication of their faith. Perhaps, had one womanbeen too weak to resist, too cowardly to court and embrace death, hername might have been preserved. Such, too, fail to appear in the Jewishannals, which contain but few women's names of any kind. Inspireddevotion of strength and life to Judaism was as natural with a Jewess asquiet, unostentatious activity in her home. No need, therefore, to makemention of act or name. 

Jewish woman, then, has neither found, nor sought, and does not need, aFrauenlob, historian or poet, to proclaim her praise in the gates, totouch the strings of his lyre in her honor. Her life, in its simplicityand gentleness, its patience and exalted devotion, is itself a Song ofSongs, more beautiful than poet ever composed, a hymn more joyous thanany ever sung, on the prophetess's sublime and touching text, _Embeyisrael_, "a mother in Israel. "

As Miriam and Deborah are representative of womanhood during Israel'snational life, so later times, the Talmudic periods, produced women withgreat and admirable qualities. Prominent among them was Beruriah, thegentle wife of Rabbi Meïr, the Beruriah whose heart is laid bare in thefollowing touching story from the Talmud:[26]

One Sabbath her husband had been in the academy all day teaching thecrowds that eagerly flocked to his lectures. During his absence fromhome, his two sons, distinguished for beauty and learning, died suddenlyof a malignant disease. Beruriah bore the dear bodies into her sleepingchamber, and spread a white cloth over them. When the rabbi returned inthe evening, and asked for his boys that, according to wont, he mightbless them, his wife said, "They have gone to the house of God. "

She brought the wine-cup, and he recited the concluding prayer of theSabbath, drinking from the cup, and, in obedience to a hallowed custom, passing it to his wife. Again he asked, "Why are my sons not here todrink from the blessed cup?" "They cannot be far off, " answered thepatient sufferer, and suspecting naught, Rabbi Meïr was happy andcheerful. When he had finished his meal, Beruriah said: "Rabbi, allow meto ask you a question. " With his permission, she continued: "Some timeago a treasure was entrusted to me, and now the owner demands it. ShallI give it up?" "Surely, my wife should not find it necessary to ask thisquestion, " said the rabbi. "Can you hesitate about returning property toits rightful owner?" "True, " she replied, "but I thought best not toreturn it until I had advised you thereof. " And she led him into thechamber to the bed, and withdrew the cloth from the bodies. "O, my sons, my sons, " lamented the father with a loud voice, "light of my eyes, lampof my soul. I was your father, but you taught me the Law. " Her eyessuffused with tears, Beruriah seized her grief-stricken husband's hand, and spoke: "Rabbi, did you not teach me to return without reluctancethat which has been entrusted to our safekeeping? See, 'the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. '""'Blessed be the name of the Lord, '" repeated the rabbi, accepting herconsolation, "and blessed, too, be His name for your sake; for, it iswritten: 'Who can find a virtuous woman? for far above pearls is hervalue. . . . She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and the law of kindness isupon her tongue. '"

Surrounded by the halo of motherhood, richly dowered with intellectualgifts, distinguished for learning, gentleness, and refinement, Beruriahis a truly poetic figure. Incensed at the evil-doing of the unrighteous, her husband prayed for their destruction. "How can you ask that, Rabbi?"Beruriah interrupted him; "do not the Scriptures say: 'May _sins_ ceasefrom off the earth, and the wicked will be no more'? When _sin_ ceases, there will be no more _sinners_. Pray rather, my rabbi, that theyrepent, and amend their ways. "[27]

That a woman could attain to Beruriah's mental poise, and make her voiceheard and heeded in the councils of the teachers of the Law, and thatthe rabbis considered her sayings and doings worthy of record, would ofitself, without the evidence of numerous other learned women of Talmudfame, prove, were proof necessary, the honorable position occupied byJewish women in those days. Long before Schiller, the Talmud said:[28]"Honor women, because they bring blessing. " Of Abraham it is said: "Itwas well with him, because of his wife Sarah. " Again: "More glorious isthe promise made to women, than that to men: In Isaiah (xxxii. 9) weread: 'Ye women that are at ease, hear my voice!' for, with women itlies to inspire their husbands and sons with zeal for the study of theLaw, the most meritorious of deeds. " Everywhere the Talmud sounds thepraise of the virtuous woman of Proverbs and of the blessings of a happyfamily life. 

A single Talmudic sentence, namely, "He who teaches his daughter theLaw, teaches her what is unworthy, " torn from its context, and falselyinterpreted, has given rise to most absurd theories with regard to theviews of Talmudic times on the matter of woman's education. It should betaken into consideration that its author, who is responsible also forthe sentiment that "woman's place is at the distaff, " was the husband ofIma Shalom, a clever, highly cultured, but irascible woman, who was onintimate terms with Jewish Christians, and was wont to interfere in thedisputations carried on by men--in short, a representative Talmudicblue-stocking, with all the attributes with which fancy would be proneto invest such a one. [29]

Elsewhere the Talmud tells about Rabbi Nachman's wife Yaltha, the proudand learned daughter of a princely line. Her guest, the poor itinerantpreacher Rabbi Ulla, expressed the opinion that according to the Law itwas not necessary to pass the wine-cup over which the blessing has beensaid to women. The opinion, surely not the withheld wine, so angered hishostess, that she shivered four hundred wine-pitchers, letting theircontents flow over the ground. [30] If the rabbis had such incidents inmind, crabbed utterances were not unjustifiable. Perhaps everyrabbinical antagonist to woman's higher education was himself the victimof a learned wife, who regaled him, after his toilsome research at theacademy, with unpalatable soup, or, worse still, with Talmudicdiscussions. Instances are abundant of erudite rabbis tormented by theirwives. One, we are told, refused to cook for her husband, and another, day after day, prepared a certain dish, knowing that he would not touchit. 

But this is pleasantry. It would betray total ignorance of the Talmudand the rabbis to impute to them the scorn of woman prevalent at thattime. The Talmud and its sages never weary of singing the praise ofwomen, and at every occasion inculcate respect for them, and devotion totheir service. The compiler of the Jerusalem Talmud, Rabbi Jochanan, whose life is crowned with the aureole of romance, pays a delicatetribute to woman by the question: "Who directed the first prayer ofthanksgiving to God? A woman, Leah, when she cried out in the fulness ofher joy: 'Now again will I praise the Lord. '"

Under the influence of such ideal views, and in obedience to suchstandards, Jewish woman led a modest, retired life of domestic activity, the help-meet and solace of her husband, the joy of his age, thetreasure of his liberty, his comforter in sorrow. For, when theportentous catastrophe overwhelmed the Jewish nation, when Jerusalem andthe Temple lay in ruins, when the noblest of the people were slain, andthe remnant of Israel was made to wander forth out of his land into ahostile world, to fulfil his mission as a witness to the truth ofmonotheism, then Jewish woman, too, was found ready to assume theburdens imposed by distressful days. 

Israel, broken up into unresisting fragments, began his two thousandyears' journey through the desert of time, despoiled of all possessionsexcept his Law and his family. Of these treasures Titus and his legionscould not rob him. From the ruins of the Jewish state blossomed forththe spirit of Jewish life and law in vigorous renewal. Judaism roserejuvenated on the crumbling temples of Jupiter, immaculate in doctrine, incorruptible in practice. Israel's spiritual guides realized thatadherence to the Law is the only safeguard against annihilation andoblivion. From that time forth, the men became the guardians of the_Law_, the women the guardians of the purity of _life_, both workingharmoniously for the preservation of Judaism. 

The muse of history recorded no names of Jewish women from thedestruction of the Temple to the eleventh century. Yet the studentcannot fail to assign the remarkable preservation of the race towoman's gentle, quiet, though paramount influence by the side of theearnest tenacity of men. Among Jews leisure, among non-Jews knowledge, was lacking to preserve names for the instruction of posterity. BeforeJews could record their suffering, the oppressor's hand again fell, itsgrasp more relentless than ever. For many centuries blood and tearsconstitute the chronicle of Jewish life, and at the sources of thesestreams of blood and rivers of tears, the genius of Jewish history sitslamenting. 

Whenever the sun of tolerance broke through the clouds of oppression, and for even a brief period shone upon the martyr race, its marvellousdevelopment under persecution and in despite of unspeakable suffering atonce stood revealed. During these occasional breaks in the darkness, women appeared whose erudition was so profound as to earn specialmention. As was said above, the first names of women distinguished forbeauty and intellect come down to us from the eleventh century, and eventhen only Italy, Provence, Andalusia, and the Orient, were favored, Jewsin these countries living unmolested and in comparative freedom, andzealously devoting their leisure to the study of the Talmud and secularbranches of learning. In praise of Italy it was said: "Out of Bari goesforth the Law, and the word of the Lord from Otranto. " It is, therefore, not surprising to read in Jewish sources of the maiden Paula, of thefamily Deï Mansi (Anawim), the daughter of Abraham, and later the wifeof Yechiel deï Mansi, who, in 1288, copied her father's abstruseTalmudic commentary, adding ingenious explanations, the result ofindependent research. But one grows somewhat sceptical over the account, by a Jewish tourist, Rabbi Petachya of Ratisbon, of Bath Halevi, daughter of Rabbi Samuel ben Ali in Bagdad, equally well-read in theBible and the Talmud, and famous for her beauty. She lectured on theTalmud to a large number of students, and, to prevent their falling inlove with her, she sat behind lattice-work or in a glass cabinet, thatshe might be heard but not seen. The dry tourist-chronicler fails toreport whether her disciples approved of the preventive measure, andwhether in the end it turned out to have been effectual. At all events, the example of the learned maiden found an imitator. Almost a centurylater we meet with Miriam Shapiro, of Constance, a beautiful Jewishgirl, who likewise delivered public lectures on the Talmud sittingbehind a curtain, that the attention of her inquisitive pupils might notbe distracted by sight of her from their studies. 

Of the learned El Muallima we are told that she transplanted Karaitedoctrines from the Orient to Castile, where she propagated them. Thedaughter of the prince of poets, Yehuda Halevi, is accredited with asoulful religious poem hitherto attributed to her father, and RabbiJoseph ibn Nagdela's wife was esteemed the most learned andrepresentative woman in Granada. Even in the choir of Arabic-Andalusianpoets we hear the voice of a Jewish songstress, Kasmune, the daughterof the poet Ishmael. Only a few blossoms of her delicate poetry havebeen preserved. [31] Catching sight of her young face in the mirror, shecalled out:

 "A vine I see, and though 'tis time to glean, No hand is yet stretched forth to cull the fruit. Alas! my youth doth pass in sorrow keen, A nameless 'him' my eyes in vain salute. "

Her pet gazelle, raised by herself, she addresses thus:

 "In only thee, my timid, fleet gazelle, Dark-eyed like thee, I see my counterpart; We both live lone, without companion dwell, Accepting fate's decree with patient heart. "

Of other women we are told whose learning and piety inspired respect, not only in Talmudic authorities, but, more than that, in their sistersin faith. Especially in the family of Rashi (Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac), immortal through his commentaries on the Bible and the Talmud, a numberof women distinguished themselves. His daughter Rachel (Bellejeune), onone occasion when her father was sick, wrote out for Rabbi Abraham Cohenof Mayence an opinion on religious questions in dispute. Rashi's twogranddaughters, Anna and Miriam, were equally famous. In questionsrelating to the dietary laws, they were cited as authorities, and theirdecisions accepted as final. 

Zunz calls the wife of Rabbi Joseph ben Jochanan of Paris "almost arabbi"; and Dolce, wife of the learned Rabbi Eleazar of Worms, supportedher family with the work of her hands, was a thorough student of thedietary laws, taught women on Jewish subjects, and on Sabbath deliveredpublic lectures. She wore the twofold crown of learning and martyrdom. On December 6, 1213, fanatic crusaders rushed into the rabbi's house, and most cruelly killed her and her two daughters, Bella and Anna. 

Israel having again fallen on evil times, the rarity of women writersduring the next two centuries needs no explanation. In the sixteenthcentury their names reappear on the records, not only as Talmudicscholars, but also as writers of history in the German language. Litteof Ratisbon composed a history of King David in the celebrated "Book ofSamuel, " a poem in the _Nibelungen_ stanza, and we are told that RachelAckermann of Vienna was banished for having written a piquant novel, "Court Secrets. "

These tentative efforts led the way to busy and widespread activity byJewish women in various branches of literature at a somewhat laterperiod, when the so-called _Judendeutsch_, also known as_Altweiberdeutsch_ (old women's German), came into general use. RebekahTiktiner, daughter of Rabbi Meïr Tiktiner, attained to a reputationconsiderable enough to suggest her scholarly work to J. G. Zeltner, aRostock professor, as the subject of an essay published in 1719. Herbook, _Meneketh Ribka_, deals with the duties of woman. Edel Mendels ofCracow epitomized "Yosippon" (History of the Jews after Josephus); BellaChasan, who died a martyr's death, composed two instructive works onJewish history, in their time widely read; Glikel Hamel of Hamburg wroteher memoirs, describing her contemporaries and the remarkable events ofher life; Hannah Ashkenasi was the author of addresses on moralsubjects; and Ella Götz translated the Hebrew prayers intoJewish-German. 

Litte of Ratisbon found imitators. Rosa Fischels of Cracow was the firstto put the psalms into Jewish-German rhymes (1586). She turned the wholepsalter "into simple German very prettily, modestly, and withalpleasantly for women and maidens to read. " The authoress acknowledgesthat it was her aim to imitate the rhyme and melody of the "Book ofSamuel" by her famed predecessor. Occasionally her paraphrase rises tothe height of true poetry, as in the first and last verses of Psalmxcvi:

"Sing to God a new song, sing to God all the land, sing to God, praiseHis name, show forth His ready help from day to day. . . . The field andall thereon shall show great joy; they will sing with all their leaves, the trees of the wood and the grove, before the Lord God who will cometo judge the earth far and near. He judgeth the earth with righteousnessand the nations with truth. "

Rosa Fischels was followed by a succession of women writers: Taube Panin Prague, a poetess; Bella Hurwitz, who wrote a history of the Houseof David, and, in association with Rachel Rausnitz, an account of thesettlement of Jews in Prague; and a number of scholarly women famousamong their co-religionists for knowledge of the Talmud, piety, andbroad, secular culture. 

In a rapid review like this of woman's achievements on the field ofJewish scholarship, the results recorded must appear meagre, owingpartly to the paucity of available data, partly to the nature of theinquiry. Abstruse learning, pure science, original research, are by nomeans woman's portion. Such occupations demand complete surrender on thepart of the student, uninterrupted attention to the subject pursued, anddelicately organized woman is not capable of such absorption. Woman'sperceptions are subtle, and she rests satisfied with her intuitions;while man strives to transmute his feelings, deeper than hers, intoaction. The external appeals to woman who comprehends easily andquickly, and, therefore, does not penetrate beneath the surface. Man, onthe other hand, strives to pierce to the essence of things, apprehendsmore slowly, but thinks more profoundly, and tests carefully before heaccepts. Hence we so rarely meet woman in the field of science, whileher work in the domain of poetry and the humanities is abundant andattractive. Jewish women form no exception to the rule: a survey ofJewish poetry will show woman's share in its productions to have beenconsiderable and of high quality. While there was little or nopossibility to prosecute historic or scientific inquiry during theharrowing days of persecution, the well-spring of Jewish poetry neverran dry. Poetry followed the race into exile, and clave to it throughall vicissitudes, its solacement in suffering, the holy mediatrixbetween its past and future. "The Orient dwells an exile in theOccident, and its tears of longing for home are the fountain-head ofJewish poetry, " says a Christian scholar. And at the altar of thispoetry, whose sweetness and purity sanctified home life, and spread asense of morality in a time when brutality and corruptness were general, the women singers of Israel offered the gifts of their muse. While theculture of that time culminated in the service of love (_Minnedienst_), in woman worship, so offensive to modern taste, Jewish poetry waspervaded by a pure, ideal conception of love and womanhood, testifyingto the high ethical principles of its devotees. 

Judaism and Jewish poetry know naught of the sensual love so assiduouslyfostered by the cult of the Virgin. "Love, " says a celebrated historianof literature, "was glorified in all shapes and guises, and representedas the highest aim of life. Woman's virtues, yea, even her vices, wereinvested with exaggerated importance. Woman became accustomed to thinkthat she could be neither faithful nor faithless without turning theworld topsy-turvy. She shared the fate of all objects of excessiveadulation: flattery corrupted her. Thus it came about that love of womanovershadowed every other social force and every form of familyaffection, and so spent its power. The Jews were the only ones saneenough to subordinate sexual love to reverence for motherhood. AlexanderWeill makes a Jewish mother say: 'Is it proper for a good Jewish motherto concern herself about love? Love is revolting idolatry. A Jewess maylove only God, her husband, and her children. ' Granny (_Alt-Babele_) inone of Kompert's tales says: 'God could not be everywhere, so he createdmothers. ' In Jewish novels, maternal love is made the basis of familylife, its passion and its mystery. A Jewish mother! What an image thewords conjure up! Her face is calm, though pale; a melancholy smilerests upon her lips, and her soulful eyes seem to hide in their depthsthe vision of a remote future. "

This is a correct view. Jewish poetry is interpenetrated with the breathof intellectual love, that is, love growing out of the recognition ofduty, no less ideal than sensual love. In the heart of the Jew love isan infinite force. Too mighty to be confined to the narrow limits ofpersonal passion, it extends so as to include future generations. 

Thus it happened that while in Christian poetry woman was the subject ofsong and sonnet, in Jewish poetry she herself sang and composed, and herproductions are worthy of ranking beside the best poetic creations ofeach generation. 

The earliest blossoms of Jewish poetry by women unfolded in thespring-like atmosphere of the Renaissance under the blue sky of Italy, the home of the immortal trio, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. Thefirst Jewish women writers of Italian verse were Deborah Ascarelli andSara Copia Sullam, who, arrayed in the full panoply of the culture oftheir day, and as thoroughly equipped with Jewish knowledge, devotedtheir talents and their zeal to the service of their nation. 

Deborah Ascarelli of Rome, the pride of her sex, was the wife of therespected rabbi Giuseppe Ascarelli, and lived at Venice in the beginningof the seventeenth century. She made a graceful Italian translation ofMoses Rieti's _Sefer ha-Hechal_, a Hebrew poem written in imitation ofthe _Divina Commedia_, and enjoying much favor at Rome. As early as1609, David della Rocca published a second edition of her translation, dedicating it to the charming authoress. To put the highly wrought, artificial poetry of the Hebrew Dante into mellifluous Italian verse wasby no means easy. While Rieti's poetry is not distinguished by the vigorand fulness of the older classical productions of neo-Hebraic poetry, his rhythm is smooth, pleasant, and polished. Yet her rendition isadmirable. Besides, she won fame as a writer of hymns in praise of theGod of her people, who so wondrously rescued it from all manner ofdistress. 

 "Let other poets of victory's trophies tell, Thy song will e'er thy people's praises swell, "

says a Jewish Italian poet enchanted by her talent. 

A still more gifted poetess was Sara Copia Sullam, a particular star inJudah's galaxy. [32] The only child of a wealthy Venetian at the end ofthe sixteenth century, she was indulged in her love of study, andafforded every opportunity to advance in the arts and sciences. "Sherevelled in the realm of beauty, and crystallized her enthusiasm ingraceful, sweet, maidenly verses. Young, lovely, of generous impulsesand keen intellectual powers, her ambition set upon lofty attainments, afavorite of the muses, Sara Copia charmed youth and age. "

These graces of mind became her misfortune. An old Italian priest, Ansaldo Çeba, in Genoa, published an Italian epic with the Esther of theBible as the heroine. Sara was delighted with the choice of the subject. It was natural that a high-minded, sensitive girl with lofty ideals, stung to the quick by the injustice and contumely suffered by herpeople, should rejoice extravagantly in the praise lavished upon aheroine of her nation. Carried away by enthusiasm she wrote the poet, astranger to her, a letter overflowing with gratitude for the puredelight his poem had yielded her. Her passionate warmth, betraying atonce the accomplished poetess and the gifted thinker, did not fail tofascinate the old priest, who immediately resolved to capture thisbeautiful soul for the church. His desire brought about a livelycorrespondence, our chief source of information about Sara Copia. Herconversion became a passion with the highstrung priest, taking completepossession of him during the last years of his life. He brought to bearupon her case every trick of dialectics and flattery at his command. Allin vain. The greatest successes of which he could boast were her promiseto read the New Testament, and her consent to his praying for herconversion. Sara's arguments in favor of Judaism arouse the reader'sadmiration for the sharpness of intellect displayed, her poetic genius, and her intimate acquaintance with Jewish sources as well as philosophicsystems. 

Ansaldo never abandoned the hope of gaining her over to Christianity. Unable to convince her reason, he attacked her heart. Though evincingsingular love and veneration for her old admirer, Sara could not bemoved from steadfast adherence to her faith. She sent him her picturewith the words: "This is the picture of one who carries yours deeplygraven on her heart, and, with finger pointing to her bosom, tells theworld: 'Here dwells my idol, bow before him. '"

With old age creeping upon him with its palsy touch, he continued tothink of nothing but Sara's conversion, and assailed her in prose andverse. One of his imploring letters closes thus:

 "Life's fair, bright morn bathes thee in light, Thy cheeks are softly flushed with youthful zest. For me the night sets in; my limbs Are cold, but ardent love glows in my breast. "

Sara having compared his poems with those of Amphion and Orpheus, heanswered her:

 "To Amphion the stones lent ear When soft he touched his lute; And beasts came trooping nigh to hear When Orpheus played his flute. 

 How long, O Sara, wilt thou liken me To those great singers of the olden days? My God and faith I sought to give to thee, In vain I proved the error of thy ways. Their song had charms more potent than my own, Or art thou harder than a beast or stone?"

The query long remained unanswered, for just then the poetess washarassed by many trials. Serious illness prostrated her, then herbeloved father died, and finally she was unjustly charged by the enviousamong her co-religionists with neglect of Jewish observances, and denialof the divine origin of the Law. She found no difficulty in refuting themalicious accusation, but she was stung to the quick by the calumniousattack, the pain it inflicted vanishing only in the presence of a gravedanger. Balthasar Bonifacio, an obscure author, in a brochure publishedfor that purpose, accused her of rejecting the doctrine of theimmortality of the soul, a most serious charge, which, if sustained, would have thrown her into the clutches of the Inquisition. In two daysshe wrote a brilliant defense completely exonerating herself andexposing the spitefulness of the attack, a masterful production byreason of its vigorous dialectics, incisive satire, and noble enthusiasmfor the cause of religion. Together with some few of her sonnets, thisis all that has come down to us of her writings. She opened hervindication with the following sonnet:

 "O Lord, Thou know'st my inmost hope and thought, Thou know'st whene'er before Thy judgment throne I shed salt tears, and uttered many a moan, 'Twas not for vanities that I besought. O turn on me Thy look with mercy fraught, And see how envious malice makes me groan! The pall upon my heart by error thrown Remove; illume me with Thy radiant thought. At truth let not the wicked scorner mock, O Thou, that breath'dst in me a spark divine. The lying tongue's deceit with silence blight, Protect me from its venom, Thou, my Rock, And show the spiteful sland'rer by this sign That Thou dost shield me with Thy endless might. "

Sara's vindication was complete. Her friend Çeba was kept faithfullyinformed of all that befell her, but he was absorbed in thoughts of herconversion and his approaching end. He wrote to her that he did not careto receive any more letters from her unless they announced heracceptance of the true faith. 

After Ansaldo's death, we hear nothing more about the poetess. She diedat the beginning of 1641, and the celebrated rabbi, Leon de Modena, composed her epitaph, a poetic tribute to one whose life redounded tothe glory of Judaism. 

Our subject now carries us from the luxuriant south to the dunes of theNorth Sea. Holland was the first to open the doors of its citieshospitably to the three hundred thousand Jews exiled from Spain, and itsbusy capital Amsterdam became the centre whither tended the intelligentof the Marranos, fleeing before the Holy Inquisition. Physicians, mathematicians, philologists, military men, and diplomats, poets andpoetesses, took refuge there. Among the poetesses, [33] the mostprominent was Isabella Correa, distinguished for wit as well as poeticendowment, the wife of the Jewish captain and author, Nicolas de Olivery Fullano, of Majorca. One of her contemporaries, Daniel de Barrios, says that "she was an accomplished linguist, wrote delightful letters, composed exquisite verses, played the lute like a _maestro_, and sanglike an angel. Her sparkling black eyes sent piercing darts into everybeholder's heart, and she was famed for beauty as well as intellect. "She made a noble Spanish translation of _Pastor Fido_, the most popularItalian drama of the day, and published a volume of poems, also inSpanish. Antonio dos Reys sings her praises:

 "_Pastor Fido!_ no longer art thou read in thy own tongue, since Correa, Faithfully rendering thy song, created thee anew in Spanish forms. A laurel wreath surmounts her brow, Because her right hand had cunning to strike tones from the tragic lyre. On the mount of singers, a seat is reserved for her, Albeit many a Batavian voice refused consent. For, Correa's faith invited scorn from aliens, And her own despised her cheerful serenity. Now, with greater justice, all bend a reverent knee to Correa, the Jewess, Correa, who, it seems, is wholly like Lysia. "

Donna Isabella Enriquez, a Spanish poetess of great versatility, was hercontemporary. She lived first in Madrid, afterwards in Amsterdam, andeven in advanced age was surrounded by admirers. At the age ofsixty-two, she presented the men of her acquaintance with amuletsagainst love, notwithstanding that she had spoken and written againstthe use of charms. For instance, when an egg with a crown on the end wasfound in the house of Isaac Aboab, the celebrated rabbi at Amsterdam, she wrote him the following:

 "See, the terror! Lo! the wonder! Basilisk, the fabled viper! Superstition names it so. Look at it, I pray, with calmness, 'Twas thy mind that was at fault. God's great goodness is displayed here; He, I trow, rewards thy eloquence In the monster which thou seest: All this rounded whole's thy virtue, Wisdom's symbol is the crown!"

Besides Isabella Correa and Isabella Enriquez, we have the names, thoughnot the productions, of Sara de Fonseca Pina y Pimentel, BienvenidaCohen Belmonte, and Manuela Nunes de Almeida. They have left but fainttraces of their work, and fancy can fill in the sketch only withconjectures. 

After these Marrano poetesses, silence fell upon the women of Israel fora whole century--a century of oppression and political slavery, ofisolation in noisome Ghettos, of Christian scorn and mockery. The Jewsof Germany and Poland, completely crushed beneath the load of sorrow, hibernated until the gentle breath of a new time, levelling Ghetto wallsand heralding a dawn when human rights would be recognized, awoke themto activity and achievement. 

Mighty is the spirit of the times! It clears a way for itself, boldlypushing aside every stumbling-block in the shape of outworn prejudicesand decaying customs. A century dawned, the promise of liberty andtolerance flaming on its horizon, to none so sweet as to the Jew. Whohas the heart to cast the first stone upon a much-tried race, torturedthroughout the centuries, for surrendering itself to the unwonted joy ofliving, for drinking deep, intoxicating draughts from the newlydiscovered fount of liberty, and, alas! for throwing aside, under theburning sun of the new era, the perennial protection of its religion?And may we utterly condemn the daughters of Israel, the "roses ofSharon, " and "lilies of the valleys, " "unkissed by the dew, lostwanderers cheered by no greeting, " who, now that all was sunshine, forgot their people, and disregarded the sanctity of family bonds, theirshield and their refuge in the sorrow and peril of the dark ages?

With emotion, with pain, not with resentment, Jewish history tells ofthose women, who spurned Judaism, knowing only its external appearance, its husk, not its essence, high ethical principles and philosophicaltruths--of Rahel Varnhagen, Henriette Herz, Regina Fröhlich, DorotheaMendelssohn, Sarah and Marianne Meyer, Esther Gad, and many others, first products of German culture in alliance with Jewish wit andbrilliancy. 

Rahel Levin was the foster-mother of "Young Germany, " and leader in thewoman's emancipation movement, so fruitful later on of deplorableexcesses. Rahel herself never overstepped the limits of "_dasEwig-Weibliche_. " No act of hers ran counter to the most exaltedrequirements of morality. Her being was pervaded by high seriousness, noble dignity, serene cheerfulness. "She dwelt always in the Holy ofholies of thought, and even her most daring wishes for herself andmankind leapt shyly heavenwards like pure sacrificial flames. " Nothingmore touching can be found in the history of the human heart than herconfession before death: "With sublime rapture I dwell upon my originand the marvellous web woven by fate, binding together the oldestrecollections of the human race and its most recent aspirations, connecting scenes separated by the greatest possible intervals of timeand space. My Jewish birth which I long considered a stigma, a soredisgrace, has now become a precious inheritance, of which nothing onearth can deprive me. "[34]

The fact is that Rahel Levin was a great woman, great even in heraberrations, while her satellites, shining by reflected light, andpretending to perpetuate her spirit, transgressed the bounds ofwomanliness, and opened wide a door to riotous sensuality. Certainopponents of the woman's emancipation movement take malicioussatisfaction in rehearsing that it was a Jewess who inaugurated it, prudently neglecting to mention that in the list of Rahel's followers, not one Jewish name appears. 

The spirit of Judaism and with it the spirit of morality can never beextinguished. They may flag, or vanish for a time, but their restorationin increased vigor and radiance is certain; for, they bear withinthemselves the guarantee of a future. Henriette Herz, the apostatedaughter of Judaism chewing the cud of Schleiermacher's sentimentalityand Schlegel's romanticism, had not yet passed away when Englandproduced Jewish women whose deeds were quickened by the spirit of oldenheroism, who walked in the paths of wisdom and faith, and, recoilingfrom the cowardice that counsels apostasy, would have fought, if needbe, suffered, and bled, for their faith. What answer but the blush ofshame mantling her cheek could the proud beauty have found, had she beenasked by, let us say, Lady Judith Montefiore, to tell what it was thatchained her to the ruins of the Jewish race?

Lady Montefiore truly was a heroine, worthy to be named with those whohave made our past illustrious, and her peer in intellect and strengthof character was Charlotte Montefiore, whose early death was a seriousloss to Judaism as well as to her family. Her work, "A Few Words to theJews by one of themselves, " containing that charming tale, "The JewelIsland, " displays intellectual and poetic gifts. 

The most prominent of women writers in our era unquestionably is GraceAguilar, in whom we must admire the rare union of broad culture andprofound piety. She was born at Hackney in June of 1816, and earlyshowed extraordinary talent and insatiable thirst for knowledge. In hertwelfth year she wrote "Gustavus Vasa, " an historical drama evincingsuch unusual gifts that her parents were induced to devote themselvesexclusively to her education. It is a charming picture this, of a young, gifted girl, under the loving care of cultured parents actuated by thesole desire to imbue their daughter with their own taste for natural andartistic beauty and their steadfast love for Judaism, and content tolead a modest existence, away from the bustle and the opportunities ofthe city, in order to be able to give themselves up wholly to theeducation and companionship of their beloved, only daughter. Under theinfluence of a wise friend, Grace Aguilar herself tells us, shesupplicated God to enable her to do something by which her people mightgain higher esteem with their Christian fellow-citizens. 

God hearkened unto her prayer, for her efforts were crowned withsuccess. Her first work was the translation of a book from the Hebrew, "Israel Defended. " Next came "The Magic Wreath, " a collection of poems, and then her well-known works, "Home Influence, " "The Spirit ofJudaism, " her best production, "The Women of Israel, " "The JewishFaith, " and "History of the Jews in England"--a rich harvest for onewhose span of life was short. Her pen was dipped into the blood of herveins and the sap of her nerves; the sacred fire of the prophets burntin her soul, and she was inspired by olden Jewish enthusiasm anddevotion to a trust. 

So ardent a spirit could not long be imprisoned within so frail a body. In the very prime of life, just thirty-one years old, Grace Aguilarpassed away, as though her beautiful soul were hastening to shake offthe mortal coil. She rests in German earth, in the Frankfort Jewishcemetery. Her grave is marked with a simple stone, bearing an equallysimple epitaph:

 "Give her of the fruit of her hands, And let her own works praise her in the gates. "

Her death was deeply lamented far and wide. She was a golden link in thechain of humanity--a bold, courageous, withal thoroughly womanly woman, a God-inspired daughter of her race and faith. "We are persuaded, " saysa non-Jewish friend of hers, "that had this young woman lived in thetimes of frightful persecution, she would willingly have mounted thestake for her faith, praying for her murderers with her last breath. "That the nobility of a solitary woman, leaping like a flame from heartto heart, may inspire high-minded thoughts, and that Grace Aguilar'slife became a blessing for her people and for humanity, is illustratedby the following testimonial signed by several hundred Jewish women, presented to her when she was about to leave England:

"Dearest Sister--Our admiration of your talents, our veneration for yourcharacter, our gratitude for the eminent services your writings renderour sex, our people, our faith, in which the sacred cause of truereligion is embodied: all these motives combine to induce us to intrudeon your presence, in order to give utterance to sentiments which we arehappy to feel and delighted to express. Until you arose, it has, inmodern times, never been the case that a Woman in Israel should standforth the public advocate of the faith of Israel; that with the depthand purity of feelings which is the treasure of woman, and with thestrength of mind and extensive knowledge that form the pride of man, sheshould call on her own to cherish, on others to respect, the truth as itis in Israel. 

"You, dearest Sister, have done this, and more. You have taught us toknow and appreciate our dignity; to feel and to prove that no femalecharacter can be . . . More pure than that of the Jewish maiden, none morepious than that of the woman in Israel. You have vindicated our socialand spiritual equality with our brethren in the faith: you have, by yourown excellent example, triumphantly refuted the aspersion, that theJewish religion leaves unmoved the heart of the Jewish woman. Yourwritings place within our reach those higher motives, those holierconsolations, which flow from the spirituality of our religion, whichurge the soul to commune with its Maker and direct it to His grace andHis mercy as the best guide and protector here and hereafter. . . . "

Her example fell like seed upon fertile soil, for Abigail Lindo, MarianHartog, Annette Salomon, and especially Anna Maria Goldsmid, a writer ofmerit, daughter of the well-known Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, may beconsidered her disciples, the fruit of her sowing. 

The Italian poetess, Rachel Morpurgo, a worthy successor of DeborahAscarelli and Sara Copia Sullam, was contemporaneous with Grace Aguilar, though her senior by twenty-six years. Our interest in her is heightenedby her use of the Hebrew language, which she handled with suchconsummate skill that her writings easily take rank with the best ofneo-Hebraic literature. A niece of the famous scholar S. D. Luzzatto, she was born at Triest, April 8, 1790. Until the age of twelve shestudied the Bible, then she read Bechaï's "Duties of the Heart" andRashi's commentary, and from her fourteenth to her sixteenth year shedevoted herself to the Talmud and the Zohar--a remarkable course ofstudy, pursued, too, in despite of adverse circumstances. At the sametime she was taught the turner's art by Luzzatto's father, and later shelearned tailoring. One of her poems having been published without herknowledge, she gives vent to her regret in a sonnet:

 "My soul surcharged with grief now loud complains, And fears upon my spirit heavily weigh. 'Thy poem we have heard, ' the people say, 'Who like to thee can sing melodious strains?' 'They're naught but sparks, ' outspeaks my soul in chains, 'Struck from my life by torture every day. But now all perfume's fled--no more my lay Shall rise; for, fear of shame my song restrains. ' A woman's fancies lightly roam, and weave Themselves into a fairy web. Should I Refrain? Ah! soon enough this pleasure, too, Will flee! Verily I cannot conceive Why I'm extolled. For woman 'tis to ply The spinning wheel--then to herself she's true. "

This painful self-consciousness, coupled with the oppression of materialcares, forms the sad refrain of Rachel Morpurgo's writings. She is atrue poetess: the woes of humanity are reflected in her own sorrows, towhich she gave utterance in soulful tones. She, too, became an exemplarfor a number of young women. A Pole, Yenta Wohllerner, like RachelMorpurgo, had to propitiate churlish circumstances before she couldpublish the gifts of her muse, and Miriam Mosessohn, Bertha Rabbinowicz, and others, emulated her masterly handling of the Hebrew language. 

The opening of the new era was marked by the appearance of a triad ofJewesses--Grace Aguilar in England, Rachel Morpurgo in Italy, andHenriette Ottenheimer in Germany. A native of the blessed land ofSuabia, Henriette Ottenheimer was consecrated to poetry by intercoursewith two masters of song--Uhland and Rückert. Her poems, fragrantblossoms plucked on Suabian fields, for the most part are no more thansweet womanly lyrics, growing strong with the force of enthusiasm onlywhen she dwells upon her people's sacred mission and the heroes of Bibledays. 

Women like these renew the olden fame of the Jewess, and addachievements to her brilliant record. As for their successors andimitators, our contemporaries, whose literary productions are before us, on them we may not yet pass judgment; their work is still on probation. 

One striking circumstance in connection with their activity should bepointed out, because it goes to prove the soundness of judgment, thepenetration, and expansiveness characteristic of Jews. While themovement for woman's complete emancipation has counted not a singleJewess among its promoters, its more legitimate successor, the movementto establish woman's right and ability to earn a livelihood in anybranch of human endeavor--a right and ability denied only by prejudice, or stupidity--was headed and zealously supported by Jewesses, anassertion which can readily be proved by such names as Lina Morgenstern, known to the public also as an advocate of moderate religious reforms, Jenny Hirsch, Henriette Goldschmidt, and a number of writers on subjectsof general and Jewish interest, such as Rachel Meyer, Elise Levi(Henle), Ulla Frank-Wolff, Johanna Goldschmidt, Caroline Deutsch, inGermany; Rebekah Eugenie Foa, Julianna and Pauline Bloch, in France;Estelle and Maria Hertzveld, in Holland, and Emma Lazarus, in America. 

One other name should be recorded. Fanny Neuda, the writer of "Hours ofDevotion, " and a number of juvenile stories, has a double claim upon ourrecognition, inasmuch as she is an authoress of the Jewish race who hasaddressed her writings exclusively to Jewish women. 

We have followed Jewish women from the days of their first flight intothe realm of song through a period of two thousand years up to moderntimes, when our record would seem to come to a natural conclusion. But Ideem it proper to bring to your attention a set of circumstances whichwould be called phenomenal, were it not, as we all know, that thegreatest of all wonders is that true wonders are so common. 

It is a well-known fact, spread by literary journals, that theRothschild family, conspicuous for financial ability, has produced agoodly number of authoresses. But it is less well known, and much morenoteworthy, that many of the excellent women of this family have devotedtheir literary gifts and attainments to the service of Judaism. Thepalaces of the Rothschilds, the richest family in the world, harbor manya warm heart, whose pulsations are quickened by the thought of Israel'shistory and poetic heritage. Wealth has not abated a jot of theirenthusiasm and loyal love for the faith. The first of the house ofRothschild to make a name for herself as an authoress was LadyCharlotte Rothschild, in London, one of the noblest women of our time, who, standing in the glare of prosperity, did not disdain to take up thecudgels in defense of her people, to go Sabbath after Sabbath to herpoor, unfortunate sisters in faith, and expound to them, in the schoolestablished by her generosity, the nature and duties of a moral, religious life, in lectures pervaded by the spirit of truth and faith. Two volumes of these addresses have been published in German and English(1864 and 1869), and every page gives evidence of rare piety, considerable scholarship, thorough knowledge of the Bible, and a highdegree of culture. Equal enthusiasm for Judaism pervades the two volumesof "Thoughts Suggested by Bible Texts" (1859), by Baroness Louise, another of the English Rothschilds. 

Three young women of this house, in which wealth is not hostile toidealism, have distinguished themselves as writers, foremost among themClementine Rothschild, a gentle, sweet maiden, claimed by death beforelife with its storms could rob her of the pure ideals of youth. She diedin her twentieth year, and her legacy to her family and her faith iscontained in "Letters to a Christian Friend on the Fundamental Truths ofJudaism, " abundantly worthy of the perusal of all women, regardless ofcreed. This young woman displayed more courage, more enthusiasm, morewit, to be sure also more precise knowledge of Judaism, than thousandsof men of our time, young and old, who fancy grandiloquent periodssufficient to solve the great religious problems perplexing mankind. 

Finally, mention must be made of Constance and Anna de Rothschild, whosetwo volume "History and Literature of the Israelites" (1872) created averitable sensation, and awakened the literary world to the fact thatthe Rothschild family is distinguished not only for wealth, but also forthe talent and religious zeal of its authoresses. 

I have ventured to group these women of the Rothschild family togetheras a conclusion to the history of Jewish women in literature, because Itake their work to be an earnest of future accomplishment. Such examplescannot fail to kindle the spark of enthusiasm slumbering in the heartsof Jewish women, and the sacred flame of religious zeal, tended oncemore by women, will leap from rank to rank in the Jewish army. As it is, a half-century has brought about a remarkable change in feeling towardsJudaism. Fifty years ago the following lines by Caroline Deutsch, one ofthe above-mentioned modern German writers, could not have awakened thesame responsive chord as now:

 "Little cruet in the Temple That didst feed the sacrificial flame, What a true expressive symbol Art thou of my race, of Israel's fame! Thou for days the oil didst furnish To illume the Temple won from foe-- So for centuries in my people Spirit of resistance ne'er burnt low. It was cast from home and country, Gloom and sorrow were its daily lot; Yet the torch of faith gleamed steady, Courage, like thy oil, forsook it not. Mocks and jeers were all its portion, Death assailed it in ten thousand forms-- Yet this people never faltered, Hope, its beacon, led it through all storms. Poorer than dumb, driven cattle, It went forth enslaved from its estate, All its footsore wand'rings lighted By its consciousness of worth innate. Luckless fortunes could not bend it; Unjust laws increased its wondrous faith; From its heart exhaustless streaming, Freedom's light shone on its thorny path. Oil that burnt in olden Temple, Eight days only didst thou give forth light! Oil of faith sustained this people Through the centuries of darkest night!"

We can afford to look forward to the future of Judaism serenely. Thesigns of the times seem propitious to him whose eye is clear to readthem, whose heart not too embittered to understand their message aright. 

Our rough and tumble time, delighting in negation and destruction, crushing underfoot the tender blossoms of poetry and faith, living up toits quasi motto, "What will not die of itself, must be put to death, "will suddenly come to a stop in its mad career of annihilation. Thatwill mark the dawn of a new era, the first stirrings of a newspring-tide for storm-driven Israel. On the ruins will rise the Jewishhome, based on Israel's world-saving conception of family life, which, having enlightened the nations of the earth, will return to the sourcewhence it first issued. Built on this foundation, and resting on thepillars of modern culture, Jewish spirit, and true morality, the Jewishhome will once more invite the nations to exclaim: "How beautiful arethy tents, O Jacob, thy dwellings, O Israel!"

May the soft starlight of woman's high ideals continue to gleam on thethorny path of the thinker Israel; may they never depart from Israel, those God-kissed women that draw inspiration at the sacred fount ofpoesy, and are consecrated by its limpid waters to give praise andthanksgiving to Him that reigns on high; may the poet's words everremain applicable to the matrons and maidens of Israel:[35]

 "Pure woman stands in life's turmoil A rose in leafy bower; Her aspirations and her toil Are tinted like a flower. 

 Her thoughts are pious, kind, and true, In evil have no part; A glimpse of empyrean blue Is seen within her heart. "

MOSES MAIMONIDES

"Who is Maimonides? For my part, I confess that I have merely heard thename. " This naïve admission was not long since made by a well-knownFrench writer in discussing the subject of a prize-essay, "Upon thePhilosophy of Maimonides, " announced by the _académie universitaire_ ofParis. What short memories the French have for the names of foreignscholars! When the proposed subject was submitted to the French ministerof instruction, he probably asked himself the same question; but he wasnot at a loss for an answer; he simply substituted Spinoza forMaimonides. To be sure, Spinoza's philosophy is somewhat better knownthan that of Maimonides. But why should a minister of instruction takethat into consideration? The minister and the author--both presumablyover twenty-five years of age--might have heard this very questionpropounded and answered some years before. They might have known thattheir colleague Victor Cousin, to save Descartes from the disgrace ofhaving stood sponsor to Spinozism, had established a far-fetchedconnection between the Dutch philosopher and the Spanish, pronouncingSpinoza the devoted disciple of Maimonides. Perhaps they might have beenexpected to know, too, that Solomon Munk, through his Frenchtranslation of Maimonides' last work, had made it possible for modernthinkers to approach the Jewish philosopher, and that soon after thistranslation was published, E. Saisset had written an article upon Jewishphilosophy in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, in which he gave a popularand detailed exposition of Maimonides' religious views. All this theydid not know, and, had they known it, they surely would not have been socandid as the German thinker, Heinrich Ritter, who, in his "History ofChristian Philosophy, " frankly admits: "My impression was that mediævalphilosophy was not indebted to Jewish metaphysicians for any originalline of thought, but M. Munk's discovery convinced me of mymistake. "[36]

Who was Maimonides? The question is certainly more justifiable uponGerman than upon French soil. In France, attention has been invited tohis works, while in Germany, save in the circle of the learned, he isalmost unknown. Even among Jews, who call him "Rambam, " he is celebratedrather than known. It seems, then, that it may not be unprofitable topresent an outline of the life and works of this philosopher of themiddle ages, whom scholars have sought to connect with Spinoza, withLeibnitz, and even with Kant. [37]

While readers in general possess but little information about Maimonideshimself, the period in which he lived, and which derives much of itsbrilliancy and importance from him, is well known, and has come to be afavorite subject with modern writers. That period was a very dreamlandof culture. Under enlightened caliphs, the Arabs in Spain developed acivilization which, during the whole of the middle ages up to theRenaissance, exercised pregnant influence upon every department of humanknowledge. A dreamland, in truth, it appears to be, when we reflect thatthe descendants of a highly cultured people, the teachers of Europe inmany sciences, are now wandering in African wilds, nomads, who know ofthe glories of their past only through a confused legend, holding out tothem the extravagant hope that the banner of the Prophet may again wavefrom the cathedral of Granada. Yet this Spanish-Arabic period bequeathedto us such magnificent tokens of architectural skill, of scientificresearch, and of philosophic thought, that far from regarding it asfancy's dream, we know it to be one of the corner-stones ofcivilization. 

Prominent among the great men of this period was the Jew Moses benMaimon, or as he was called in Arabic, Abu Amran Musa ibn Maimûn ObaidAllah (1135-1204). It may be said that he represented the full measureof the scientific attainments of the age at the close of which hestood--an age whose culture comprised the whole circle of sciences thenknown, and whose conscious goal was the reconciliation of religion andphilosophy. The sturdier the growth of the spirit of inquiry, the moreardent became the longing to reach this goal, the keener became theperception of the problems of life and faith. Arabic and Jewish thinkerszealously sought the path leading to serenity. Though they never enteredupon it, their tentative efforts naturally prepared the way for a greatcomprehensive intellect. Only a genius, master of all the sciences, combining soundness of judgment and clearness of insight with greatmental vigor and depth, can succeed in reconciling the divergentprinciples of theology and speculation, if such reconciliation be withinthe range of the possible. At Cordova, in 1135, when the sun of Arabicculture reached its zenith, was born Maimonides, the man gifted withthis all-embracing mind. 

Many incidents in his life, not less interesting than his philosophicdevelopment, have come down to us. His father was his first teacher. Toescape the persecutions of the Almohades, Maimonides, then thirteenyears old, removed to Fez with his family. There religious persecutionforced Jews to abjure their faith, and the family of Maimon, like manyothers, had to comply, outwardly at least, with the requirements ofIslam. At Fez Maimonides was on intimate terms with physicians andphilosophers. At the same time, both in personal intercourse with themand in his writings, he exhorted his pseudo-Mohammedan brethren toremain true to Judaism. This would have cost him his life, had he notbeen rescued by the kindly offices of Mohammedan theologians. Thefeeling of insecurity induced his family to leave Fez and join theJewish community in Palestine. "They embarked at dead of night. On thesixth day of their voyage on the Mediterranean, a frightful storm arose;mountainous waves tossed the frail ship about like a ball; shipwreckseemed imminent. The pious family besought God's protection. Maimonidesvowed that if he were rescued from threatening death, he would, as athank-offering for himself and his family, spend two days in fasting anddistributing alms, and devote another day to solitary communion withGod. The storm abated, and after a month's voyage, the vessel ran intothe harbor of Accho. "[38] The travellers met with a warm welcome, butthey tarried only a brief while, and finally settled permanently inEgypt. There, too, disasters befell Maimonides, who found solace only inhis implicit reliance on God and his enthusiastic devotion to learning. It was then that Maimonides became the religious guide of his brethren. At the same time he attained to eminence in his medical practice, anddevoted himself zealously to the study of philosophy and the naturalsciences. Yet he did not escape calumny, and until 1185 fortune refusedto smile upon him. In that year a son, afterwards the joy and pride ofhis heart, was born to him. Then he was appointed physician at the courtof Saladin, and so great was his reputation that Richard Coeur de Lionwished to make him his physician in ordinary, but Maimonides refused theoffer. Despite the fact that his works raised many enemies against him, his influence grew in the congregations of his town and province. Fromall sides questions were addressed to him, and when religious pointswere under debate, his opinion usually decided the issue. At his deathat the age of seventy great mourning prevailed in Israel. His mortalremains were moved to Tiberias, and a legend reports that Bedouinsattacked the funeral train. Finding it impossible to move the coffinfrom the spot, they joined the Jews, and followed the great man to hislast resting-place. The deep reverence accorded him both by the moralsense and the exuberant fancy of his race is best expressed in the briefeulogy of the saying, now become almost a proverb: "From Moses, theProphet, to Moses ben Maimon, there appeared none like unto Moses. "

In three different spheres Maimonides' work produced important results. First in order stand his services to his fellow-believers. For them hecompiled the great Codex, the first systematic arrangement, upon thebasis of Talmudic tradition, of all the ordinances and tenets ofJudaism. He gave them a system of ethics which even now should beprized, because it inculcates the highest possible ethical views and themost ideal conception of man's duties in life. He explained to them, almost seven hundred years ago, Islam's service to mankind, and themission Christianity was appointed by Providence to accomplish. 

His early writings reveal the fundamental principles of his subsequentliterary work. An astronomical treatise on the Jewish calendar, writtenin his early youth, illustrates his love of system, but his peculiarmethod of thinking and working is best shown in the two works thatfollowed. The first is a commentary on parts of the Talmud, probablymeant to present such conclusions of the Babylonian and the JerusalemTalmud as affect the practices of Judaism. The second is his Arabiccommentary on the Mishna. He explains the Mishna simply and clearly froma strictly rabbinical point of view--a point of view which he neverrelinquished, permitting a deviation only in questions not affectingconduct. Master of the abundant material of Jewish literature, he feltit to be one of the most important tasks of the age to simplify, bymethodical treatment, the study of the mass of written and traditionalreligious laws, accumulated in the course of centuries. It is this workthat contains the attempt, praised by some, condemned by others, toestablish articles of the Jewish faith, the Bible being used inauthentication. Thirteen articles of faith were thus established. Thefirst five naturally define the God-idea: Article 1 declares theexistence of God, 2, His unity, 3, His immateriality, 4, His eternity, 5, that unto Him alone, to whom all created life owes its being, humanadoration is due; the next four treat of revelation: 6, of revelationsmade through prophets in general, 7, of the revelation made throughMoses, 8, of the divine origin of the Law, 9, of the perfection of theLaw, and its eternally binding force; and the rest dwell upon thedivine government of the world: 10, Divine Providence, 11, reward andpunishment, here and hereafter, 12, Messianic promises and hopes, and13, resurrection. 

Maimonides' high reputation among his own people is attested by hisletters and responses, containing detailed answers to vexed religiousquestions. An especially valuable letter is the one upon "EnforcedApostasy, " _Iggereth ha-Sh'mad_. He advises an inquirer what to do whenmenaced by religious persecutions. Is one to save life by accepting, orto court death by refusing to embrace, the Mohammedan faith? Maimonides'opinion is summed up in the words: "The solution which I alwaysrecommend to my friends and those consulting me is, to leave suchregions, and to turn to a place in which religion can be practicedwithout fear of persecution. No considerations of danger, of property, or of family should prevent one from carrying out this purpose. Thedivine Law stands in higher esteem with the wise than the haphazardgifts of fortune. These pass away, the former remains. " His responses aswell as his most important works bear the impress of a sane, well-ordered mind, of a lofty intellect, dwelling only upon what istruly great. 

Also his second famous work, the above-mentioned Hebrew Codex, _MishnehTorah_, "Recapitulation of the Law, " was written in the interest of hisbrethren in faith. Its fourteen divisions treat of knowledge, love, thefestivals, marriage laws, sanctifications, vows, seeds, Temple-service, sacrifices, purifications, damages, purchase and sale, courts, andjudges. "My work is such, " says Maimonides, "that my book in connectionwith the Bible will enable a student to dispense with the Talmud. " Fromwhatever point of view this work may be regarded, it must be admittedthat Maimonides carried out his plan with signal success, and that it isthe only one by which method could have been introduced into themanifold departments of Jewish religious lore. But it is obvious thatthe thinker had not yet reached the goal of his desires. In consonancewith his fundamental principle, a scientific systemization of religiouslaws had to be followed up by an explanation of revealed religion andGreek-Arabic philosophy, and by the attempt to bring about areconciliation between them. 

Before we enter upon this his greatest book, it is well to dispose ofthe second phase of his work, his activity as a medical writer. Maimonides treated medicine as a science, a view not usual in thosedays. The body of facts relating to medicine he classified, as he hadsystematized the religious laws of the Talmud. In his methodical way, healso edited the writings of Galen, the medical oracle of the middleages, and his own medical aphorisms and treatises are marked by the samelove of system. It seems that he had the intention to prepare a medicalcodex to serve a purpose similar to that of his religious code. Howgreat a reputation he enjoyed among Mohammedan physicians is shown bythe extravagantly enthusiastic verses of an Arabic poet:

 "Of body's ills doth Galen's art relieve, Maimonides cures mind and body both, -- His wisdom heals disease and ignorance. And should the moon invoke his skill and art, Her spots, when full her orb, would disappear; He'd fill her breach, when time doth inroads make, And cure her, too, of pallor caused by earth. "

Maimonides' real greatness, however, must be sought in his philosophicwork. Despite the wide gap between our intellectual attitude and thephilosophic views to which Maimonides gave fullest expression, we canproperly appreciate his achievements and his intellectual grasp byjudging him with reference to his own time. When we realize that heabsorbed all the thought-currents of his time, that he was theirfaithful expounder, and that, at the same time, he was gifted with anaccurate, historic instinct, making him wholly objective, we shallrecognize in him "the genius of his peculiar epoch become incarnate. "The work containing Maimonides' deepest thought and the sum of hisknowledge and erudition was written in Arabic under the name _Dalalatal-Haïrin_. In Hebrew it is known as _Moreh Nebuchim_, in Latin, as_Doctor Perplexorum_, and in English as the "Guide of the Perplexed. " Tothis book we shall now devote our attention. The original Arabic textwas supposed, along with many other literary treasures of the middleages, to be lost, until Solomon Munk, the blind _savant_ with clearvision, discovered it in the library at Paris, and published it. But inits Hebrew translation the book created a stir, which subsided only withits public burning at Montpellier early in the thirteenth century. TheLatin translation we owe to Buxtorf; the German is, I believe, incomplete, and can hardly be said to give evidence of ripescholarship. [39]

The question that naturally suggests itself is: What does the bookcontain? Does it establish a new system of philosophy? Is it acyclopædia of the sciences, such as the Arab schools of that day werewont to produce? Neither the one nor the other. The "Guide of thePerplexed" is a system of rational theology upon a philosophic basis, abook not intended for novices, but for thinkers, for such minds as knowhow to penetrate the profound meaning of tradition, as the author saysin a prefatory letter addressed to Joseph ibn Aknin, his favoritedisciple. He believes that even those to whom the book appeals are oftenpuzzled and confused by the apparent inconsistencies between the literalinterpretation of the Bible and the evidence of reason, that they do notknow whether to take Scriptural expressions as symbolic or allegoric, orto accept them in their literal meaning, and that they fall a prey todoubt, and long for a guide. Maimonides is prepared to lead them to aneminence on which religion and philosophy meet in perfect harmony. 

Educated in the school of Arabic philosophers, notably under theinfluence of Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Maimonides paid hero-worship toAristotle, the autocrat of the middle ages in the realm of speculation. There is no question that the dominion wielded by the Greek philosopherthroughout mediæval times, and the influence which he exercises evennow, are chiefly attributable to the Arabs, and beside them, pre-eminently to Maimonides. For him, Aristotle was second in authorityonly to the Bible. A rational interpretation of the Bible, in hisopinion, meant its interpretation from an Aristotelian point of view. Still, he does not consider Aristotle other than a thinker like himself, not by any means the infallible "organ of reason. " The moment hediscovers that a peripatetic principle is in direct and irreconcilableconflict with his religious convictions, he parts company with it, letthe effort cost what it may. For, above all, Maimonides was a faithfulJew, striving to reach a spiritual conception of his religion, and toassign to theology the place in his estimation belonging to it in therealm of science. He stands forth as the most eminent intermediarybetween Greek-Arabic thought and Christian scholasticism. A centurylater, the most prominent of the schoolmen endeavored, in the same wayas Maimonides, to reconcile divine with human wisdom as manifested byAristotle. It has been demonstrated that Maimonides was followed by bothAlbertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, and that the new aims of philosophy, conceived at the beginning of the thirteenth century, are, in part, tobe traced to the influence of "Rabbi Moses of Egypt, " as Maimonides wascalled by the first of these two celebrated doctors of the Church. 

What a marvellous picture is presented by the unfolding of theAristotelian idea in its passage through the ages! And one of the mostattractive figures on the canvas is Maimonides. Let us see how heundertakes to guide the perplexed. His path is marked out for him by theBible. Its first few verses suffice to puzzle the believing thinker. Itsays: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. " What! Is thisexpression to be taken literally? Impossible! To conceive of God as suchthat a being can be made in His image, is to conceive of Him as acorporeal substance. But God is an invisible, immaterial Intelligence. Reason teaches this, and the sacred Book itself prohibits image-worship. On this point Aristotle and the Bible are in accord. The inference isthat in the Holy Scriptures there are many metaphors and words with adouble or allegoric sense. Such is the case with the word "image. " Ithas two meanings, the one usual and obvious, the other figurative. Herethe word must be taken in its figurative sense. God is conceived as thehighest Reason, and as reason is the specific attribute whichcharacterizes the human mind, it follows that man, by virtue of hispossession of reason, resembles God, and the more fully he realizes theideal of Reason, the closer does he approach the form and likeness ofGod. Such is Maimonides' method of reasoning. He does not build up a newsystem of philosophy, he adopts an existing system. Beginning with Bibleexegesis, he leads us, step by step, up to the lofty goal at whichphilosophy and faith are linked in perfect harmony. 

The arguments for the existence, unity, and incorporeity of God dividethe Arabic philosophers into two schools. Maimonides naturally espousedthe view permitting the most exalted conception of God, that is, theconception of God free from human attributes. He recognizes none butnegative attributes; in other words, he defines God by means ofnegations only. For instance, asserting that the Supreme Being isomniscient or omnipotent, is not investing Him with a positiveattribute, it is simply denying imperfection. The student knows that inthe history of the doctrine of attributes, the recognition of negativeattributes marks a great advance in philosophic reasoning. Maimonidesholds that the conception of the Deity as a pure abstraction is the onlyone truly philosophic. His evidences for the existence, theimmateriality, and the unity of God, are conceived in the same spirit. In offering them he follows Aristotle's reasoning closely, adding onlyone other proof, the cosmological, which he took from his teacher, theArab Avicenna. He logically reaches this proof by more explicitlydefining the God-idea, and, at the same time, taking into considerationthe nature of the world of things and their relation to one another. Acquainted with Ptolemy's "Almagest" and with the investigations of theArabs, he naturally surpasses his Greek master in astronomicalknowledge. In physical science, however, he gives undivided allegianceto the Aristotelian theory of a sublunary and a celestial world ofspheres, the former composed of the sublunary elements in constantlyshifting, perishable combinations, and the latter, of the stable, unchanging fifth substance (quintessence). But the question, how Godmoves these spheres, separates Maimonides from his master. His ownanswer has a Neoplatonic ring. He holds, with Aristotle, that there areas many separate Intelligences as spheres. Each sphere is supposed toaspire to the Intelligence which is the principle of its motion. TheArabic thinkers assumed ten such independent Intelligences, oneanimating each of the nine permanent spheres, and the tenth, called the"Active Intellect, " influencing the sublunary world of matter. Theexistence of this tenth Intelligence is proved by the transition of ourown intellect from possible existence to actuality, and by the varyingforms of all transient things, whose matter at one time existed only ina potential state. Whenever the transition from potentiality toactuality occurs, there must be a cause. Inasmuch as the tenthIntelligence (_Sechel Hapoel_, Active Intellect) induces form, it mustitself be form, inasmuch as it is the source of intellect, it is itselfintellect. This is, of course, obscure to us, but we must remember thatMaimonides would not have so charming and individual a personality, were he not part and parcel of his time and the representative of itsbelief. Maimonides, having for once deviated from the peripateticsystem, ventures to take another bold step away from it. He offers anexplanation, different from Aristotle's, of the creation of the world. The latter repudiated the _creatio ex nihilo_ (creation out of nothing). Like modern philosophers, he pre-supposed the existence of an eternal"First substance" (_materia prima_). His Bible does not permit our rabbito avail himself of this theory. It was reserved for the moderninvestigator to demonstrate how the Scriptural word, with some littlemanipulation, can be so twisted as to be made to harmonize with thetheories of natural science. But to such trickery the pure-minded guidewill not stoop. Besides, the acceptance of Aristotle's theory would ruleout the intervention of miracles in the conduct of the world, and thatMaimonides does not care to renounce. Right here his monotheisticconvictions force him into direct opposition to the Greek as well as tothe Arabic philosophers. Upon this subject, he brooked neither triflingnor compromise with reason. It is precisely his honesty that so exaltedhis teachings, that they have survived the lapse of centuries, andmaintain a place in the pure atmosphere of modern philosophic thought. 

According to Maimonides, man has absolute free-will, and God isabsolutely just. Whatever good befalls man is reward, all his evilfortune, punishment. What Aristotle attributes to chance, and theMohammedan philosophers to Divine Will or Divine Wisdom, our rabbitraces to the _merits of man_ as its cause. He does not admit anysuffering to be unmerited, or that God ordains trials merely toindemnify the sufferer in this or the future world. Man's susceptibilityto divine influence is measured by his intellectual endowment. Throughhis "intellect, " he is directly connected with the "Active Intellect, "and thus secures the grace of God, who embraces the infinite. Such viewsnaturally lead to a conception of life in consonance with the purestideals of morality, and they are the goal to which the "Guide" leads theperplexed. He teaches that the acquiring of high intellectual power, andthe "possession of such notions as lead to true metaphysical opinions"about God, are "man's final object, " and they constitute true humanperfection. This it is that "gives him immortality, " and confers uponhim the dignity of manhood. 

The highest degree of perfection, according to Maimonides, is reached byhim who devotes all his thoughts and actions to perfecting himself indivine matters, and this highest degree he calls prophecy. He isprobably the first philosopher to offer so rationalistic an explanation, and, on that account, it merits our attention. What had previously beenregarded as supernatural inspiration, the "Guide" reduces to apsychological theory. "Prophecy, " he says, "is, in truth and reality, anemanation sent forth by the Divine Being through the medium of theActive Intellect, in the first instance to man's rational faculty, andthen to his imaginative faculty; it is the highest degree . . . Ofperfection man can attain; it consists in the most perfect developmentof the imaginative faculty. " Maimonides distinguishes eleven degrees ofinspiration, and three essential conditions of prophecy: 1. Perfectionof the natural constitution of the imaginative faculty, 2. Mentalperfection, which may partially be acquired by training, and 3. Moralperfection. Moses arrived at the highest degree of prophecy, because heunderstood the knowledge communicated to him without the medium of theimaginative faculty. This spiritual height having been scaled, the"Guide" needs but to take a step to reach revelation, in his estimationalso an intellectual process: man's intellect rises to the SupremeBeing. 

In the third part of his work, Maimonides endeavors to reconcile theconclusions of philosophy with biblical laws and Talmudical traditions. His method is both original and valuable; indeed, this deserves to beconsidered the most important part of his work. Detailed exposition ofhis reasoning may prove irksome; we shall, therefore, consider it asbriefly as possible. 

Maimonides laid down one rule of interpretation which, almost withoutexception, proves applicable: The words of Holy Writ express differentsets of ideas, bearing a certain relation to each other, the one sethaving reference to physical, the other to spiritual, qualities. Byapplying this rule, he thinks that nearly all discrepancies between theliteral interpretation of the Bible and his own philosophic theoriesdisappear. Having passed over the domain of metaphysical speculation, hefinally reaches the consideration of the practical side of the Bible, that is to say, the Mosaic legislation. These last investigations of hisare attractive, not only by reason of the satisfactory method pursued, but chiefly from the fact that Maimonides, divesting himself of theconservatism of his contemporaries, ventures to inquire into the reasonsof biblical laws. For many of them, he assigns local and historicalreasons; many, he thinks, owe their origin to the desire to oppose thesuperstitious practices of early times and of the Sabeans, a mythical, primitive race; but all, he contends, are binding, and with this solemnasseveration, he puts the seal upon his completed work. 

When Maimonides characterized the "Guide of the Perplexed" as "the truescience of the Bible, " he formed a just estimate of his own work. It hascome to be the substructure of a rational theology based uponspeculation. Maimonides cannot be said to have been very much ahead ofhis own age; but it is altogether certain that he attained the acme ofthe possibilities of the middle ages. In many respects there is astriking likeness between his life and work and those of the Arabicfreethinker Averroës, whom we now know so well through Ernest Renan. While the Jewish theologian was composing his great work, the Arabicphilosopher was writing his "Commentaries on Aristotle. " The two hadsimilar ends in view--the one to enthrone "the Stagirite" as theautocrat of philosophy in the Mosque, the other, in the Synagogue. Wehave noted the fact that, some centuries later, the Church also enteredthe federation subject to Aristotelian rule. Albertus Magnus usesMaimonides, Thomas Aquinas joins him, and upon them depend the otherschoolmen. Recent inquirers follow in their train. Philosophy's noblestvotary, Benedict Spinoza himself, is influenced by Maimonides. He quotesfrequently and at great length the finest passages of the "Guide. "Again, Moses Mendelssohn built his system on the foundations offered byMaimonides, and an acute critic assures us that, in certain passages, Kant's religious philosophy breathes the spirit of Maimonides. [40]

The "Guide of the Perplexed" did not, however, meet with so gracious areception in the Synagogue. There, Maimonides' philosophic systemconjured up violent storms. The whole of an epoch, that followingMaimonides' death, was absorbed in the conflict between philosophy andtradition. Controversial pamphlets without number have come down to usfrom those days. Enthusiasts eulogized, zealots decried. Maimonides'ambiguous expressions about bodily resurrection, seeming to indicatethat he did not subscribe to the article of the creed on that subject, caused particularly acrimonious polemics. Meïr ben Todros ha-Levi, aTalmudist and poet of Toledo, denounced the equivocation in thefollowing lines:

 "If those that rise from death again must die, For lot like theirs I ne'er should long and sigh. If graves their bones shall once again confine, I hope to stay where first they bury mine. "

Naturally, Maimonides' followers were quick to retort:

 "His name, forsooth, is Meïr 'Shining. ' How false! since _light_ he holds in small esteem. Our language always contrast loveth, -- Twi_light_'s the name of ev'ning's doubtful gleam. "

Another of Maimonides' opponents was the physician Judah Alfachar, whobore the hereditary title _Prince_. The following pasquinade isattributed to him:

 "Forgive, O Amram's son, nor deem it crime, That he, deception's master, bears thy name. _Nabi_ we call the prophet of truths sublime, Like him of Ba'al, who doth the truth defame. "

Maimonides, in his supposed reply to the Prince, played upon the word_Chamor_, the Hebrew word for _ass_, the name of a Hivite princementioned in the Bible:

 "High rank, I wot, we proudly claim When sprung from noble ancestor; Henceforth my mule a _prince_ I'll name Since once a prince was called _Chamor_. "

It seems altogether certain that this polemic rhyming is the fabricationof a later day, for we know that the controversies about Maimonides'opinions in Spain and Provence broke out only after his death, when hischief work had spread far and wide in its Hebrew translation. Thefollowing stanza passed from mouth to mouth in northern France:

 "Be silent, 'Guide, ' from further speech refrain! Thus truth to us was never brought. Accursed who says that Holy Writ's a trope, And idle dreams what prophets taught. "

Whereupon the Provençals returned:

 "Thou fool, I pray thou wilt forbear, Nor enter on this consecrated ground. Or trope, or truth--or vision fair, Or only dream--for thee 'tis too profound. "

The homage paid to Maimonides' memory in many instances produced mostextravagant poetry. The following high-flown lines, outraging the canonsof good taste recognized in Hebrew poetry, are supposed to be hisepitaph:

 "Here lies a man, yet not a man, And if a man, conceived by angels, By human mother only born to light; Perhaps himself a spirit pure-- Not child by man and woman fostered-- From God above an emanation bright. "

Such hyperbole naturally challenged opposition, and Maimonides'opponents did not hesitate to give voice to their deep indignation, asin the following:

 "Alas! that man should dare To say, with reckless air, That Holy Scripture's but a dream of night; That all we read therein Has truly never been, Is naught but sign of meaning recondite. And when God's wondrous deeds The haughty scorner reads, Contemptuous he cries, 'I trust my sight. '"

A cessation of hostilities came only in the fourteenth century. The"Guide" was then given its due meed of appreciation by the Jews. Later, Maimonides' memory was held in unbounded reverence, and to-day his"Guide of the Perplexed" is a manual of religious philosophy treasuredby Judaism. 

If we wish once more before parting from this earnest, noble thinker toreview his work and attitude, we can best do it by applying to them thestandard furnished by his own reply to all adverse critics of hiswritings: "In brief, such is my disposition. When a thought fills mymind, though I be able to express it so that only a single man among tenthousand, a thinker, is satisfied and elevated by it, while the commoncrowd condemns it as absurd, I boldly and frankly speak the word thatenlightens the wise, never fearing the censure of the ignorant herd. "

This was Maimonides--he of pure thought, of noble purpose; imbued withenthusiasm for his faith, with love for science; ruled by the loftiestmoral principles; full of disinterested love and the milk of humankindness in his intercourse with those of other faiths and other views;an eagle-eyed thinker, in whom were focused and harmoniously blended thelast rays of the declining sun of Arabic-Jewish-Spanish culture. 

JEWISH TROUBADOURS AND MINNESINGERS

A great tournament at the court of Pedro I. ! Deafening fanfares invitecourtiers and cavaliers to participate in the festivities. In thebrilliant sunshine gleam the lances of the knights, glitter the spearsof the hidalgos. Gallant paladins escort black-eyed beauties to theelevated balcony, on which, upon a high-raised throne, under a gildedcanopy, surrounded by courtiers, sit Blanche de Bourbon and herillustrious lord Dom Pedro, with Doña Maria de Padilla, the lady of hischoice, at his left. Three times the trumpets have sounded, announcingthe approach of the troubadours gathered from all parts of Castile tocompete with one another in song. Behold! a venerable old man, withsilvery white beard flowing down upon his breast, seeks to extricatehimself from the crowd. With admiring gaze the people respectfully makeway, and enthusiastically greet him: "Rabbi Don Santo! Rabbi Don Santo!"

The troubadour makes a low obeisance before the throne. Dom Pedro nodsencouragement, Maria de Padilla smiles graciously, only Doña Blanca'spallid face remains immobile. The hoary bard begins his song:[41]

 "My noble king and mighty lord, A discourse hear most true; 'Tis Santob brings your Grace the word, Of Carrion's town the Jew. 

 In plainest verse my thought I tell, With gloss and moral free, Drawn from Philosophy's pure well, As onward you may see. "[42]

A murmur of approval runs through the crowd; grandees and hidalgos presscloser to listen. In well-turned verse, fraught with worldly-wiselessons, and indifferent whether his hortations meet with praise or withcensure, the poet continues to pour out words of counsel and moralteachings, alike for king, nobles, and people. 

Who is this Rabbi Don Santob? We know very little about him, yet, withthe help of "bright-eyed fancy, " enough to paint his picture. The realname of this Jew from Carrion de los Condes, a city of northern Spain, who lived under Alfonso XI and Peter the Cruel, was, of course, notSantob, but Shem-Tob. Under Alfonso the intellectual life of Spaindeveloped to a considerable degree, and in Spain, as almost everywhere, we find Jews in sympathy with the first intellectual strivings of thenation. They have a share in the development of all Romance languagesand literatures. Ibn Alfange, a Moorish Jew, after his conversion a highofficial, wrote the first "Chronicle of the Cid, " the oldest source ofthe oft-repeated biography, thus furnishing material to subsequentSpanish poets and historians. Valentin Barruchius (Baruch), of Toledo, composed, probably in the twelfth century, in pure, choice Latin, theromance _Comte Lyonnais, Palanus_, which spread all over Europe, affording modern poets subject-matter for great tragedies, and formingthe groundwork for one of the classics of Spanish literature. A littlelater, Petrus Alphonsus (Moses Sephardi) wrote his _DisciplinaClericalis_, the first collection of tales in the Oriental manner, themodel of all future collections of the kind. 

Three of the most important works of Spanish literature, then, areproducts of Jewish authorship. This fact prepares the student to find aJew among the Castilian troubadours of the fourteenth century, theperiod of greatest literary activity. The Jewish spirit was by no meansantagonistic to the poetry of the Provençal troubadours. In his didacticpoem, _Chotham Tochnith_ ("The Seal of Perfection, " together with "TheFlaming Sword"), Abraham Bedersi, that is, of Béziers (1305), challengeshis co-religionists to a poetic combat. He details the rules of thetournament, and it is evident that he is well acquainted with all theminutiæ of the _jeu parti_ and the _tenso_ (song of dispute) of theProvençal singers, and would willingly imitate their _sirventes_ (moraland political song). His plaint over the decadence of poetry among theJews is characteristic: "Where now are the marvels of Hebrew poetry?Mayhap thou'lt find them in the Provençal or Romance. Aye, in Folquet'sverses is manna, and from the lips of Cardinal is wafted the perfume ofcrocus and nard"--Folquet de Lunel and Peire Cardinal being the lastgreat representatives of Provençal troubadour poetry. Later on, neo-Hebraic poets again show acquaintance with the regulations governingsong-combats and courts of love. Pious Bible exegetes, like Samuel benMeïr, do not disdain to speak of the _partimens_ of the troubadours, "inwhich lovers talk to each other, and by turns take up the discourse. "One of his school, a _Tossafist_, goes so far as to press into servicethe day's fashion in explaining the meaning of a verse in the "Song ofSongs": "To this day lovers treasure their mistress' locks aslove-tokens. " It seems, too, that Provençal romances were heard, andtheir great poets welcomed, in the houses of Jews, who did not scrupleoccasionally to use their melodies in the synagogue service. 

National customs, then, took root in Israel; but that Jewish elementsshould have become incorporated into Spanish literature is moreremarkable, may, indeed, be called marvellous. Yet, from one point ofview, it is not astonishing. The whole of mediæval Spanish literature isnothing more than the handmaiden of Christianity. Spanish poetry iscompletely dominated by Catholicism; it is in reality only an expressionof reverence for Christian institutions. An extreme naturally induces acounter-current; so here, by the side of rigid orthodoxy, we meet withlatitudinarianism and secular delight in the good things of life. Forinstance, that jolly rogue, the archpriest of Hita, by way of relaxationfrom the tenseness of church discipline, takes to composing _dansas_ and_baladas_ for the rich Jewish bankers of his town. He and hiscontemporaries have much to say about Jewish generosity--unfortunately, much, too, about Jewish wealth and pomp. Jewish women, a Jewishchronicler relates, are tricked out with finery, as "sumptuously as thepope's mules. " It goes without saying that, along with these accounts, we have frequent wailing about defection from the faith and neglect ofthe Law. Old Akiba is right: "History repeats itself!" ("_Es ist allesschon einmal da gewesen!_"). 

Such were the times of Santob de Carrion. Our first information abouthim comes from the Marquis de Santillana, one of the early patrons andleaders of Spanish literature. He says, "In my grandfather's time therewas a Jew, Rabbi Santob, who wrote many excellent things, among them_Proverbios Morales_ (Moral Proverbs), truly commendable in spirit. Agreat troubadour, he ranks among the most celebrated poets of Spain. "Despite this high praise, the marquis feels constrained to apologize forhaving quoted a passage from Santob's work. His praise is endorsed bythe critics. It is commonly conceded that his _Consejos y Documentos alRey Dom Pedro_ ("Counsel and Instruction to King Dom Pedro"), consistingof six hundred and twenty-eight romances, deserves a place among thebest creations of Castilian poetry, which, in form and substance, owesnot a little to Rabbi Santob. A valuable manuscript at the Escurial inMadrid contains his _Consejos_ and two other works, _La DoctrinaChristiana_ and _Dansa General_. A careless copyist called the wholecollection "Rabbi Santob's Book, " so giving rise to the mistake ofSpanish critics, who believe that Rabbi Santob, indisputably the authorof _Consejos_, became a convert to Christianity, and wrote, after hisconversion, the didactic poem on doctrinal Christianity, and perhapsalso the first "Dance of Death. "[43] It was reserved for the acutenessof German criticism to expose the error of this hypothesis. Of the threeworks, only _Consejos_ belongs to Rabbi Santob, the others wereaccidentally bound with it. In passing, the interesting circumstance maybe noted that in the first "Dance of Death" a bearded rabbi (_Rabbibarbudo_) dances toward the universal goal between a priest and anusurer. Santob de Carrion remained a Jew. His _consejos_, written whenhe was advanced in age, are pervaded by loyalty to his king, but no lessto his faith, which he openly professed at the royal court, and whosespiritual treasures he adroitly turned to poetic uses. 

Santob, it is interesting to observe, was not a writer of erotic poetry. He composed poems on moral subjects only, social satires anddenunciations of vice. Such are the _consejos_. It is in his capacity asa preacher of morality that Santob is to be classed among troubadours. First he addressed himself, with becoming deference, to the king, leading him to consider God's omnipotence:

 "As great, 'twixt heav'n and earth the space-- That ether pure and blue-- So great is God's forgiving grace Your sins to lift from you. 

 And with His vast and wondrous might He does His deeds of power; But yours are puny in His sight, For strength is not man's dower. "

At that time it required more than ordinary courage to address a king inthis fashion; but Santob was old and poor, and having nothing to lose, could risk losing everything. A democratic strain runs through hisverses; he delights in aiming his satires at the rich, the high-born, and the powerful, and takes pride in his poverty and his fame as a poet:

 "I will not have you think me less Than others of my faith, Who live on a generous king's largess, Forsworn at every breath. 

 And if you deem my teachings true, Reject them not with hate, Because a minstrel sings to you Who's not of knight's estate. 

 The fragrant, waving reed grows tall From feeble root and thin, And uncouth worms that lowly crawl Most lustrous silk do spin. 

 Because beside a thorn it grows The rose is not less fair; Though wine from gnarlèd branches flows, 'Tis sweet beyond compare. 

 The goshawk, know, can soar on high, Yet low he nests his brood. A Jew true precepts doth apply, Are they therefore less good?

 Some Jews there are with slavish mind Who fear, are mute, and meek. My soul to truth is so inclined That all I feel I speak. 

 There often comes a meaning home Through simple verse and plain, While in the heavy, bulky tome We find of truth no grain. 

 Full oft a man with furrowed front, Whom grief hath rendered grave, Whose views of life are honest, blunt, Both fool is called and knave. "

It is surely not unwarranted to assume that from these confessions thedata of Santob's biography may be gathered. 

Now as to Santob's relation to Judaism. Doubtless he was a faithful Jew, for the views of life and the world laid down in his poems rest on theBible, the Talmud, and the Midrash. With the fearlessness of convictionhe meets the king and the people, denouncing the follies of both. Someof his romances sound precisely like stories from the Haggada, soskilfully does he clothe his counsel in the gnomic style of the Bibleand the Talmud. This characteristic is particularly well shown in hisverses on friendship, into which he has woven the phraseology of theProverbs:

 "What treasure greater than a friend Who close to us hath grown? Blind fate no bitt'rer lot can send Than bid us walk alone. 

 For solitude doth cause a dearth Of fruitful, blessed thought. The wise would pray to leave this earth, If none their friendship sought. 

 Yet sad though loneliness may be, That friendship surely shun That feigns to love, and inwardly Betrays affections won. "

The poem closes with a prayer for the king, who certainly could not havetaken offense at Santob's frankness:

 "May God preserve our lord and king With grace omnipotent, Remove from us each evil thing, And blessed peace augment. 

 The nations loyally allied Our empire to exalt, May God, in whom we all confide, From plague keep and assault. 

 If God will answer my request, Then will be paid his due-- Your noble father's last behest-- To Santob, Carrion's Jew. "

Our troubadour's poetry shows that he was devotedly attached to hisprince, enthusiastically loved his country, and was unfalteringly loyalto his faith; that he told the king honest, wholesome truths disguisedin verse; that he took no pains to conceal his scorn of those who, withbase servility, bowed to the ruling faith, and permitted its yoke to beput upon their necks; that he felt himself the peer of the high in rank, and the wealthy in the goods of this world; that he censured, withincisive criticism, the vices of his Spanish and his Jewishcontemporaries--all of which is calculated to inspire us with admirationfor the Jewish troubadour, whose manliness enabled him to meet hisdetractors boldly, as in the verses quoted above:

 "Because beside a thorn it grows, The rose is not less fair; Though wine from gnarlèd branches flows, 'Tis sweet beyond compare. 

 A Jew true precepts doth apply, Are they therefore less good?"

History does not tell us whether Pedro rewarded the Jewish troubadour asthe latter, if we may judge by the end of his poem, had expected. Ouraccounts of his life are meagre; even his fellow-believers do not makemention of him. We do know, however, that the poor poet's prayers forhis sovereign, his petitions for the weal and the glory of his countrywere not granted. Pedro lost his life by violence, quarrels about thesuccession and civil wars convulsed the land, and weakened the royalpower. Its decline marked the end of the peace and happiness of the Jewon Castilian soil. 

As times grew worse, and persecutions of the Jews in Christian Spainbecame frequent, many forsook the faith of their fathers, to bask in thesunshine of the Church, who treated proselytes with distinguished favor. The example of the first Jewish troubadour did not find imitators. Amongthe converts were many poets, notably Juan Alfonso de Bæna, who, in thefifteenth century, collected the oldest troubadour poetry, including hisown poems and satires, and the writings of the Jewish physician DonMoses Zarzal, into a _cancionera general_. Like many apostates, hesought to prove his devotion to the new faith by mocking at and revilinghis former brethren. The attacked were not slow to answer in kind, andthe Christian world of poets and bards joined the latter in deriding theneophytes. Spanish literature was not the loser by these combats, whosedescription belongs to general literary criticism. Lyric poetry, untilthen dry, serious, and solemn, was infused by the satirist with flashingwit and whimsical spirit, and throwing off its connection with thedrama, developed into an independent species of poetry. 

The last like the first of Spanish troubadours was a Jew, [44] Antonio diMontoro (Moro), _el ropero_ (the tailor), of Cordova, of whom acontemporary says, "A man of repute and lofty fame; As poet, he puts many to shame; Anton di Montoro is his name. "

The tailor-poet was exposed to attacks, too. A high and mighty Spanish_caballero_ addresses him as

 "You Cohn, you cur, You miserable Jew, You wicked usurer. "

It must be admitted that he parries these thrusts with weak, apologeticappeals, preserved in his _Respuestas_ (Rhymed Answers). He claims hishigh-born foe's sympathy by telling him that he has sons, grandchildren, a poor, old father, and a marriageable daughter. In extenuation of hiscowardice it should be remembered that Antonio di Montoro lived during areign of terror, under Ferdinand and Isabella, when his race and hisfaith were exposed to most frightful persecution. All the morenoteworthy is it that he had the courage to address the queen in behalfof his faith. He laments plaintively that despite his sixty years he hasnot been able to eradicate all traces of his descent (_reato de suorigen_), and turns his irony against himself:

 "Ropero, so sad and so forlorn, Now thou feelest pain and scorn. Until sixty years had flown, Thou couldst say to every one, 'Nothing wicked have I known. '

 Christian convert hast thou turned, _Credo_ thou to say hast learned; Willing art now bold to view Plates of ham--no more askew. Mass thou hearest, Church reverest, Genuflexions makest, Other alien customs takest. Now thou, too, mayst persecute Those poor wretches, like a brute. "

"Those poor wretches" were his brethren in faith in the fair Spanishland. With a jarring discord ends the history of the Jews in Spain. Onthe ninth of Ab, 1492, three hundred thousand Jews left the land towhich they had given its first and its last troubadour. The irony offate directed that at the selfsame time Christopher Columbus shouldembark for unknown lands, and eventually reach America, a new world, therefuge of all who suffer, wherein thought was destined to grow strongenough "to vanquish arrogance and injustice without recourse toarrogance and injustice"--a new illustration of the old verse: "Behold, he slumbereth not, and he sleepeth not--the keeper of Israel. "

* * *

A great tournament at the court of the lords of Trimberg, the Franconiantown on the Saale! From high battlements stream the pennons of the noblerace, announcing rare festivities to all the country round. Themountain-side is astir with knights equipped with helmet, shield, andlance, and attended by pages and armor-bearers, minnesingers andminstrels. Yonder is Walther von der Vogelweide, engaged in earnestconversation with Wolfram von Eschenbach, Otto von Botenlaube, Hildeboldvon Schwanegau, and Reinmar von Brennenberg. In that group of notables, curiously enough, we discern a Jew, whose beautiful features reflectharmonious soul life. 

"Süsskind von Trimberg, " they call him, and when the pleasure of thefeast in the lordly hall of the castle is to be heightened by song andmusic, he too steps forth, with fearlessness and dignity, to sing offreedom of thought, to the prevalence of which in this company thedespised Jew owed his admission to a circle of knights and poets:[45]

 "O thought! free gift to humankind! By thee both fools and wise are led, But who thy paths hath all defined, A man he is in heart and head. With thee, his weakness being fled, He can both stone and steel command, Thy pinions bear him o'er the land. 

 O thought that swifter art than light, That mightier art than tempest's roar! Didst thou not raise me in thy flight, What were my song, my minstrel lore, And what the gold from _Minne's_ store? Beyond the heights an eagle vaunts, O bear me to the spirit's haunts!"

His song meets with the approval of the knights, who give generousencouragement to the minstrel. Raising his eyes to the proud, beautifulmistress of the castle, he again strikes his lyre and sings:

 "Pure woman is to man a crown, For her he strives to win renown. Did she not grace and animate, How mean and low the castle great! By true companionship, the wife Makes blithe and free a man's whole life; Her light turns bright the darkest day. Her praise and worth I'll sing alway. "

The lady inclines her fair head in token of thanks, and the lord ofcastle Trimberg fills the golden goblet, and hands it, the mark ofhonor, to the poet, who drains it, and then modestly steps back into thecircle of his compeers. Now we have leisure to examine the rare man. --

Rüdiger Manesse, a town councillor of Zürich in the fourteenth century, raised a beautiful monument to bardic art in a manuscript work, executedat his order, containing the songs of one hundred and forty poets, living between the twelfth and the fourteenth century. Among the authorsare kings, princes, noblemen of high rank and low, burgher-poets, andthe Jew Süsskind von Trimberg. Each poet's productions are accompaniedby illustrations, not authentic portraits, but a series of vividrepresentations of scenes of knight-errantry. There are scenes of warand peace, of combats, the chase, and tourneys with games, songs, anddance. We see the storming of a castle of Love (_Minneburg_)--loversfleeing, lovers separated, love triumphant. Heinrich von Veldekereclines upon a bank of roses; Friedrich von Hausen is on board a boat;Walther von der Vogelweide sits musing on a wayside stone; Wolfram vonEschenbach stands armed, with visor closed, next to his caparisonedhorse, as though about to mount. Among the portraits of the knights andbards is Süsskind von Trimberg's. How does Rüdiger Manesse representhim? As a long-bearded Jew, on his head a yellow, funnel-shaped hat, thebadge of distinction decreed by Pope Innocent III. To be worn by Jews. That is all! and save what we may infer from his six poems preserved bythe history of literature, pretty much all, too, known of Süsskind vonTrimberg. 

Was it the heedlessness of the compiler that associated the Jew withthis merry company, in which he was as much out of place as a Gothicspire on a synagogue? Süsskind came by the privilege fairly. Throughoutthe middle ages the Jews of Germany were permeated with the culture oftheir native land, and were keenly concerned in the development of itspoetry. A still more important circumstance is the spirit of toleranceand humanity that pervades Middle High German poetry. Wolfram vonEschenbach based his _Parzival_, the herald of "Nathan the Wise, " on theidea of the brotherhood of man; Walther von der Vogelweide rangedChristians, Jews, and Mohammedans together as children of the one God;and Freidank, reflecting that God lets His sun shine on the confessorsof all creeds, went so far as to repudiate the doctrine of the eternaldamnation of Jews. This trend of thought, characterizing both Jews andChristians, suffices to explain how, in Germany, and at the very time inwhich the teachers of the Church were reviling "the mad Jews, who oughtto be hewn down like dogs, " it was possible for a Jew to be aminnesinger, a minstrel among minstrels, and abundantly accounts forSüsskind von Trimberg's association with knights and ladies. Süsskind, then, doubtless journeyed with his brother-poets from castle to castle;yet our imagination would be leading us astray, were we to acceptliterally the words of the enthusiastic historian Graetz, and with himbelieve that "on vine-clad hills, seated in the circle of noble knightsand fair dames, a beaker of wine at his side, his lyre in his hand, hesang his polished verses of love's joys and trials, love's hopes andfears, and then awaited the largesses that bought his daily bread. "[46]

Süsskind's poems are not at all like the joyous, rollicking songs hismates carolled forth; they are sad and serious, tender and chaste. Oflove there is not a word. A minnesinger and a Jew--irreconcilableopposites! A minnesinger must be a knight wooing his lady-love, whosecolors he wears at the tournaments, and for whose sake he undertakes apilgrimage to the Holy Land. The Jew's minstrelsy is a lament for Zion. 

In fact what is _Minne_--this service of love? Is it not at bottom thecult of the Virgin Mary? Is it not, in a subtle, mysterious way, a phaseof Christianity itself? How could it have appealed to the Jew Süsskind?True, the Jews, too, have an ideal of love in the "Song of Songs": "Lo, thou art beautiful, my beloved!" it says, but our old sages took thebeloved to be the Synagogue. Of this love Princess Sabbath is the ideal, and the passion of the "Song of Songs" is separated from German _Minne_by the great gap between the soul life of the Semite and that of theChristian German. Unbridled sensuousness surges through the songs risingto the chambers of noble ladies. Kabbalistic passion glows in themysterious love of the Jew. The German minstrel sings of love'ssweetness and pain, of summer and its delights, of winter and its woes, now of joy and happiness, again of ill-starred fortunes. And what is theburden of the exiled Hebrew's song? Mysterious allusions, hidden in atangle of highly polished, artificial, slow-moving rhymes, glorify, nota sweet womanly presence, but a fleeting vision, a shadow, whose elusivecharms infatuated the poet in his dreams. Bright, joyous, blithe, unmeasured is the one; serious, gloomy, chaste, gentle, the other. 

Yet, Süsskind von Trimberg was at once a Jew and a minnesinger. Who canfathom a poet's soul? Who can follow his thoughts as they fly hither andthither, like the thread in a weaver's shuttle, fashioning themselvesinto a golden web? The minnesingers enlisted in love's cause, yet nonethe less in war and the defense of truth, and for the last Süsskind vonTrimberg did valiant service. The poems of his earliest period, theblithesome days of youth, have not survived. Those that we have bear thestamp of sorrow and trouble, the gifts of advanced years. Withself-contemptuous bitterness, he bewails his sad lot:

 "I seek and nothing find, -- That makes me sigh and sigh. Lord Lackfood presses me, Of hunger sure I'll die; My wife, my child go supperless, My butler is Sir Meagreness. "

Süsskind von Trimberg's poems also breathe the spirit of Hebrewliterature, and have drawn material from the legend world of theHaggada. For the praise of his faithful wife he borrows the words ofSolomon, and the psalm-like rhythm of his best songs recalls thefamiliar strains of our evening-prayer:

 "Almighty God! That shinest with the sun, That slumb'rest not when day grows into night! Thou Source of all, of tranquil peace and joy! Thou King of glory and majestic light! Thou allgood Father! Golden rays of day And starry hosts thy praise to sing unite, Creator of heav'n and earth, Eternal One, That watchest ev'ry creature from Thy height!"

Like Santob, Süsskind was poor; like him, he denounced the rich, wasproud and generous. With intrepid candor, he taught knights the meaningof true nobility--of the nobility of soul transcending nobility ofbirth--and of freedom of thought--freedom fettered by neither stone, norsteel, nor iron; and in the midst of their rioting and feasting, heventured to put before them the solemn thought of death. His lastproduction as a minnesinger was a prescription for a "virtue-electuary. "Then he went to dwell among his brethren, whom, indeed, he had notdeserted in the pride of his youth:

 "Why should I wander sadly, My harp within my hand, O'er mountain, hill, and valley? What praise do I command?

 Full well they know the singer Belongs to race accursed; Sweet _Minne_ doth no longer Reward me as at first. 

 Be silent, then, my lyre, We sing 'fore lords in vain. I'll leave the minstrels' choir, And roam a Jew again. 

 My staff and hat I'll grasp, then, And on my breast full low, By Jewish custom olden My grizzled beard shall grow. 

 My days I'll pass in quiet, -- Those left to me on earth-- Nor sing for those who not yet Have learned a poet's worth. "

Thus spake the Jewish poet, and dropped his lyre into the stream--insong and in life, a worthy son of his time, the disciple of Walther vonder Vogelweide, the friend of Wolfram von Eschenbach--disciple andfriend of the first to give utterance, in German song, to the idea ofthe brotherhood of man. Centuries ago, he found the longed-for quiet inFranconia, but no wreath lies on his grave, no stone marks thewanderer's resting-place. His poems have found an abiding home in thememory of posterity, and in the circle of the German minnesingers theJew Süsskind forms a distinct link. 

In a time when the idea of universal human brotherhood seems to befading from the hearts of men, when they manifest a proneness to forgetthe share which, despite hatred and persecution, the Jew of everygeneration has had in German literature, in its romances of chivalry andits national epics, and in all the spiritual achievements of Germangenius, we may with just pride revive Süsskind's memory. --

On the wings of fancy let us return to our castle on the Saale. Afterthe lapse of many years, the procession of poets again wends its way inthe sunshine up the slope to the proud mansion of the Trimbergs. Thevenerable Walther von der Vogelweide again opens the festival of song. Wolfram von Eschenbach, followed by a band of young disciples, musinglyascends the mountain-side. The ranks grow less serried, and in solitudeand sadness, advances a man of noble form, his silvery beard flowingdown upon his breast, a long cloak over his shoulder, and the peakedhat, the badge of the mediæval Jew, on his head. In his eye gleams a rayof the poet's grace, and his meditative glance looks into a distantfuture. Süsskind von Trimberg, to thee our greeting!

HUMOR AND LOVE IN JEWISH POETRY

One of the most remarkable discoveries of the last ten years is thatmade in Paris by M. Ernest Renan. He maintains as the result ofscientific research that the Semitic races, consequently also the Jews, are lacking in humor, in the capacity for laughter. The justice of thereproach might be denied outright, but a statement enunciated with somuch scientific assurance involuntarily prompts questioning andinvestigation. 

In such cases the Jews invariably resort to their first text-book, theBible, whose pages seem to sustain M. Renan. In the Bible laughing ismentioned only twice, when the angel promises a son to Sarah, and againin the history of Samson, judge in Israel, who used foxes' tails asweapons against the Philistines. These are the only passages in whichthe Bible departs from its serious tone. 

But classical antiquity was equally ignorant of humor as a distinctbranch of art, as a peculiar attitude of the mind towards the problemsof life. Aristophanes lived and could have written only in the days whenAthenian institutions began to decay. It is personal discomfort and thetrials and harassments of life that drive men to the ever serene, pureregions of humor for balm and healing. Fun and comedy men have at alltimes understood--the history of Samson contains the germs of amock-heroic poem--while it was impossible for humor, genuine humor, tofind appreciation in the youth of mankind. 

In those days of healthy reliance upon the senses, poetic spirits couldobtain satisfaction only in love and in the praise of the good world andits Maker. The sombre line of division had not yet been introducedbetween the physical and the spiritual world, debasing this earth to avale of tears, and consoling sinful man by the promise of a better land, whose manifold delights were described, but about which there was noprecise knowledge, no traveller, as the Talmud aptly puts it, havingever returned to give us information about it. Those were the days ofperfect harmony, when man crept close to nature to be taught untroubledjoy in living. In such days, despite the storms assailing the youngIsraelitish nation, a poet, his heart filled with the sunshine of joy, his mind receptive, his eyes open wide to see the flowers unfold, thebuds of the fig tree swell, the vine put forth leaves, and thepomegranate blossom unfurl its glowing petals, could carol forth the"Song of Songs, " the most perfect, the most beautiful, the purestcreation of Hebrew literature and the erotic poetry of allliteratures--the song of songs of stormy passion, bidding defiance toecclesiastical fetters, at once an epic and a drama, full of childliketenderness and grace of feeling. Neither Greece, nor the rest of theOrient has produced anything to compare with its marvellous union ofvoluptuous sensuousness and immaculate chastity. Morality, indeed, isits very pulse-beat. It could be sung only in an age when love reignedsupreme, and could presume to treat humor as a pretender. So lofty asong was bound to awaken echoes and stimulate imitation, and its musichas flowed down through the centuries, weaving a thread of melody aboutthe heart of many a poet. 

The centuries of Israelitish history close upon its composition, however, were favorable to neither the poetry of love nor that of humor. But the poetry of love must have continued to exercise puissant magicover hearts and minds, if its supreme poem not only was made part of theholy canon, but was considered by a teacher of the Talmud the mostsacred treasure of the compilation. 

The blood of the Maccabean heroes victorious over Antiochus Epiphanesagain fructified the old soil of Hebrew poetry, and charmed forthfragrant blossoms, the psalms designated as Maccabean by moderncriticism. Written in troublous times, they contain a reference to thehumor of the future: "When the Lord bringeth back again the captivity ofZion, then shall we be like dreamers, then shall our mouth be filledwith laughter, and our tongue with singing. "

Many sad days were destined to pass over Israel before that future withits solacement of humor dawned. No poetic work could obtain recognitionnext to the Bible. The language of the prophets ceased to be thelanguage of the people, and every mind was occupied with interpretingtheir words and applying them to the religious needs of the hour. Theopposition between Jewish and Hellenic-Syrian views became more and moremarked. Hellas and Judæa, the two great theories of life supporting thefabric of civilization, for the first time confronted each other. Anancient expounder of the Bible says that to Hellas God gave beauty inthe beginning, to Judæa truth, as a sacred heritage. But beauty andtruth have ever been inveterate foes; even now they are not reconciled. 

In Judæa and Greece, ancient civilization found equally perfect, yettotally different, expression. The Greek worships nature as she is; theJew dwells upon the origin and development of created things, henceworships their Creator. The former in his speculations proceeds from themultiplicity of phenomena; the latter discerns the unity of the plan. Tothe former the universe was changeless actuality; to the latter it meantunending development. The world, complete and perfect, was mirrored inthe Greek mind; its evolution, in the Jewish. Therefore the Jewishconception of life is harmonious, while among the Greeks grew up thespirit of doubt and speculation, the product of civilization, and thesoil upon which humor disports. 

Israel's religion so completely satisfied every spiritual craving thatno room was left for the growth of the poetic instinct. Intellectuallife began to divide into two great streams. The Halacha continued theinstruction of the prophets, as the Haggada fostered the spirit of thepsalmists. The province of the former was to formulate the Law, of thelatter to plant a garden about the bulwark of the Law. While the oneaddressed itself to reason, the other made an appeal to the heart andthe feelings. In the Haggada, a thesaurus of the national poetry by thenameless poets of many centuries, we find epic poems and lyricoutbursts, fables, enigmas, and dramatic essays, and here and there inthis garden we chance across a little bud of humorous composition. 

Of what sort was this humor? In point of fact, what is humor? We must beable to answer the latter question before we may venture to classify thefolklore of the Haggada. 

To reach the ideal, to bring harmony out of discord, is the recognizedtask of all art. This is the primary principle to be borne in mind inæsthetic criticism. Tragedy idealizes the world by annihilation, harmonizes all contradictions by dashing them in pieces against eachother, and points the way of escape from chaos, across the bridge ofdeath, to the realm beyond, irradiated by the perpetual morning-dawn offreedom and intellect. 

Comedy, on the other hand, believes that the incongruities andimperfections of life can be justified, and have their uses. Firmlyconvinced of the might of truth, it holds that the folly and aberrationsof men, their shortcomings and failings, cannot impede its eventualvictory. Even in them it sees traces of an eternal, divine principle. While tragedy precipitates the conflict of hostile forces, comedy, rising serene above folly and all indications of transitoriness, reconciles inconsistencies, and lovingly coaxes them into harmony withthe true and the absolute. 

When man's spirit is thus made to re-enter upon the enjoyment of eternaltruth, its heritage, there is, as some one has well said, triumph akinto the joy of the father over the home-coming of a lost son, and thedivine, refreshing laughter by which it is greeted is like the mealprepared for the returning favorite. Is Israel to have no seat at thetable? Israel, the first to recognize that the eternal truths of lifeare innate in man, the first to teach, as his chief message, how toreconcile man with himself and the world, whenever these truths suffertemporary obscuration? So viewed, humor is the offspring of love, andalso mankind's redeemer, inasmuch as it paralyzes the influence of angerand hatred, emanations from the powers of change and finality, by layingbare the eternal principles and "sweet reasonableness" hidden even inthem, and finally stripping them of every adjunct incompatible with theserenity of absolute truth. In whatever mind humor, that is, love andcheerfulness, reigns supreme, the inconsistencies and imperfections oflife, all that bears the impress of mutability, will gently andgradually be fused into the harmonious perfection of absolute, eternaltruth. Mists sometimes gather about the sun, but unable to extinguishhis light, they are forced to serve as his mirror, on which he throwsthe witching charms of the Fata Morgana. So, when the eternal truths oflife are veiled, opportunity is made for humor to play upon andirradiate them. In precise language, humor is a state of perfectself-certainty, in which the mind serenely rises superior to every pettydisturbance. 

This placidity shed its soft light into the modest academies of therabbis. Wherever a ray fell, a blossom of Haggadic folklore sprang up. Every occurrence in life recommends itself to their loving scrutiny:pleasures and follies of men, curse turned into blessing, the ordinarycourse of human events, curiosities of Israel's history and mankind's. As instances of their method, take what Midrashic folklore has to sayconcerning the creation of the two things of perennial interest topoets: wife and wine. 

When the Lord God created woman, he formed her not from the head of man, lest she be too proud; not from his eye, lest she be too coquettish; notfrom his ear, lest she be too curious; not from his mouth, lest she betoo talkative; not from his heart, lest she be too sentimental; not fromhis hands, lest she be too officious; nor from his feet, lest she be anidle gadabout; but from a subordinate part of man's anatomy, to teachher: "Woman, be thou modest!"

With regard to the vine, the Haggada tells us that when Father Noah wasabout to plant the first one, Satan stepped up to him, leading a lamb, alion, a pig, and an ape, to teach him that so long as man does not drinkwine, he is innocent as a lamb; if he drinks temperately, he is asstrong as a lion; if he indulges too freely, he sinks to the level ofswine; and as for the ape, his place in the poetry of wine is as wellknown to us as to the rabbis of old. 

With the approach of the great catastrophe destined to annihilateIsrael's national existence, humor and spontaneity vanish, to besuperseded by seriousness, melancholy, and bitter plaints, and thecenturies of despondency and brooding that followed it were not bettercalculated to encourage the expression of love and humor. The pall wasnot lifted until the Haggada performed its mission as a comforter. Underits gentle ministrations, and urged into vitality by the religious needsof the synagogue, the poetic instinct awoke. _Piut_ and _Selicha_replaced prophecy and psalmody as religious agents, and thenceforth thesprings of consolation were never permitted to run dry. Driven from theshores of the Jordan and the Euphrates, Hebrew poetry found a new homeon the Tagus and the Manzanares, where the Jews were blessed with asecond golden age. In the interval from the eleventh to the thirteenthcentury, under genial Arabic influences, Andalusian masters of songbuilt up an ideal world of poetry, wherein love and humor were granteduntrammelled liberty. 

To the Spanish-Jewish writers poetry was an end in itself. Along withreligious songs, perfect in rhythm and form, they produced lyrics onsecular subjects, whose grace, beauty, harmony, and wealth of thoughtrank them with the finest creations of the age. The spirit of theprophets and psalmists revived in these Spanish poets. At their headstands Solomon ibn Gabirol, the Faust of Saragossa, whose poems are thefirst tinged with _Weltschmerz_, that peculiar ferment characteristic ofa modern school of poets. [47] Our accounts of Gabirol's life are meagre, but they leave the clear impression that he was not a favorite offortune, and passed a bleak childhood and youth. His poems are pervadedby vain longing for the ideal, by lamentations over deceived hopes andunfulfilled aspirations, by painful realization of the imperfection andperishability of all earthly things, and the insignificance andtransitoriness of life, in a word, by _Weltschmerz_, in its purest, ideal form, not merely self-deception and irony turned against one's ownsoul life, but a profoundly solemn emotion, springing from sublime pityfor the misery of the world read by the light of personal trials andsorrows. He sang not of a mistress' blue eyes, nor sighed forthmelancholy love-notes--the object of his heart's desire was Zion, hismuse the fair "rose of Sharon, " and his anguish was for the suffering ofhis scattered people. Strong, wild words fitly express his tempestuousfeelings. He is a proud, solitary thinker. Often his _Weltschmerz_wrests scornful criticism of his surroundings from him. On the otherhand, he does not lack mild, conciliatory humor, of which his famousdrinking-song is a good illustration. His miserly host had put a singlebottle of wine upon a table surrounded by many guests, who had to haverecourse to water to quench their thirst. Wine he calls aseptuagenarian, the letters of the Hebrew word for wine (_yayin_)representing seventy, and water a nonagenarian, because _mayim_ (water)represents ninety:

WATER SONG

Chorus:--Of wine, alas! there's not a drop, Our host has filled our goblets to the top With water. 

 When monarch wine lies prone, By water overthrown, How can a merry song be sung? For naught there is to wet our tongue But water. CHORUS:--Of wine, alas! etc. 

 No sweetmeats can delight My dainty appetite, For I, alas! must learn to drink, However I may writhe and shrink, Pure water. CHORUS:--Of wine, alas! etc. 

 Give Moses praise, for he Made waterless a sea-- Mine host to quench my thirst--the churl!-- Makes streams of clearest water purl, Of water. CHORUS:--Of wine, alas! etc. 

 To toads I feel allied, To frogs by kinship tied; For water drinking is no joke, Ere long you all will hear me croak Quack water! CHORUS:--Of wine, alas! etc. 

 May God our host requite; May he turn Nazirite, Ne'er know intoxication's thrill, Nor e'er succeed his thirst to still With water! CHORUS:--Of wine, alas! etc. "

Gabirol was a bold thinker, a great poet wrestling with the deepestproblems of human thought, and towering far above his contemporaries andimmediate successors. In his time synagogue poetry reached the zenith ofperfection, and even in the solemn admonitions of ritualisticliterature, humor now and again asserted itself. One of Gabirol'scontemporaries or successors, Isaac ben Yehuda ibn Ghayyat, forinstance, often made his whole poem turn upon a witticism. 

Among the writers of that age, a peculiar style called "mosaic"gradually grew up, and eventually became characteristic of neo-Hebraicpoetry and humor. For their subjects and the presentation of theirthoughts, they habitually made use of biblical phraseology, either asdirect quotations or with an application not intended by the originalcontext. In the latter case, well-known sentences were invested with newmeanings, and this poetic-biblical phraseology afforded countlessopportunities for the exercise of humor, of which neo-Hebraic poetryavailed itself freely. The "mosaics" were collected not only from theBible; the Targum, the Mishna, and the Talmud were rifled of sententiousexpressions, woven together, and with the license of art placed inunexpected juxtaposition. An example will make clear the method. InGenesis xviii. 29, God answers Abraham's petition in behalf of Sodomwith the words: "I will not do it for the sake of forty, " meaning, aseverybody knows, that forty men would suffice to save the city fromdestruction. This passage Isaac ben Yehuda ibn Ghayyat audaciouslyconnects with Deuteronomy xxv. 3, where forty is also mentioned, theforty stripes for misdemeanors of various kinds:

 "If you see men the path of right forsake, To bring them back you must an effort make. Perhaps, if they but hear of stripes, they'll quake, And say, 'I'll do it not for forty's sake. '"

This "mosaic" style, suggesting startling contrasts and surprisingapplications of Bible thoughts and words, became a fruitful source ofJewish humor. If a theory of literary descent could be established, anillustration might be found in Heine's rapid transitions from tendersentiment to corroding wit, a modern development of the flashing humorof the "mosaic" style. 

The "Song of Songs" naturally became a treasure-house of "mosaic"suggestions for the purposes of neo-Hebraic love poetry, which wasdominated, however, by Arab influences. The first poet to introduce thesorrow of unhappy love into neo-Hebraic poetry was Moses ibn Ezra. Hewas in love with his niece, who probably became the wife of one of hisbrothers, and died early on giving birth to a son. His affection atfirst was requited, but his brothers opposed the union, and the poetleft Spain, embittered and out of sorts with fate, to find peace andconsolation in distant lands. Many of his poems are deeply tinged withgloom and pessimism, and the natural inference is that those in which hepraises nature, and wine, and "bacchanalian feasts under leafy canopieswith merry minstrelsy of birds" belong to the period of his lifepreceding its unfortunate turning-point, when love still smiled uponhim, and hope was strong. 

Some of his poems may serve as typical specimens of the love-poetry ofthose days:

 "With hopeless love my heart is sick, Confession bursts my lips' restraint That thou, my love, dost cast me off, Hath touched me with a death-like taint. 

 I view the land both near and far, To me it seems a prison vast. Throughout its breadth, where'er I look, My eyes are met by doors locked fast. 

 And though the world stood open wide, Though angel hosts filled ev'ry space, To me 'twere destitute of charm Didst thou withdraw thy face. "

Here is another:

 "Perchance in days to come, When men and all things change, They'll marvel at my love, And call it passing strange. 

 Without I seem most calm, But fires rage within-- 'Gainst me, as none before, Thou didst a grievous sin. 

 What! tell the world my woe! That were exceeding vain. With mocking smile they'd say, 'You know, he is not sane!'"

When his lady-love died, he composed the following elegy:

 "In pain she bore the son who her embrace Would never know. Relentless death spread straight His nets for her, and she, scarce animate, Unto her husband signed: I ask this grace, My friend, let not harsh death our love efface; To our babes, its pledges, dedicate Thy faithful care; for vainly they await A mother's smile each childish fear to chase. And to my uncle, prithee, write. Deep pain I brought his heart. Consumed by love's regret He roved, a stranger in his home. I fain Would have him shed a tear, nor love forget. He seeketh consolation's cup, but first His soul with bitterness must quench its thirst. "

Moses ibn Ezra's cup of consolation on not a few occasions seems to havebeen filled to overflowing with wine. In no other way can the joyousnessof his drinking-songs be accounted for. The following arecharacteristic:

 "Wine cooleth man in summer's heat, And warmeth him in winter's sleet. My buckler 'tis 'gainst chilling frost, My shield when rays of sun exhaust. "

 "If men will probe their inmost heart, They must condemn their crafty art: For silver pieces they make bold To ask a drink of liquid gold. "

To his mistress, naturally, many a stanza of witty praise and coaxingimagery was devoted:

 "My love is like a myrtle tree, When at the dance her hair falls down. Her eyes deal death most pitiless, Yet who would dare on her to frown?"

 "Said I to sweetheart: 'Why dost thou resent The homage to thy grace by old men paid?' She answered me with question pertinent: 'Dost thou prefer a widow to a maid?'"

To his love-poems and drinking-songs must be added his poems offriendship, on true friends, life's crowning gift, and false friends, basest of creatures. He has justly been described as the most subjectiveof neo-Hebraic poets. His blithe delight in love, exhaling from hispoems, transfigured his ready humor, which instinctively pierced to theludicrous element in every object and occurrence: age dyeing its hair, traitorous friendship, the pride of wealth, or separation of lovers. 

Yet in the history of synagogue literature this poet goes by the name_Ha-Sallach_, "penitential poet, " on account of his many religioussongs, bewailing in elegiac measure the hollowness of life, and thevanity of earthly possessions, and in ardent words advocating humility, repentance, and a contrite heart. The peculiarity of Jewish humor isthat it returns to its tragic source. 

No mediæval poet so markedly illustrates this characteristic as theprince of neo-Hebraic poetry, Yehuda Halevi, in whose poems theprinciple of Jewish national poesy attained its completest expression. They are the idealized reflex of the soul of the Jewish people, itspoetic emotions, its "making for righteousness, " its patriotic love ofrace, its capacity for martyrdom. Whatever true and beautiful elementhad developed in Jewish soul life, since the day when Judah's song firstrang out in Zion's accents on Spanish soil, greets us in its noblestgarb in his poetry. A modern poet[48] says of him:

 "Ay, he was a master singer, Brilliant pole star of his age, Light and beacon to his people! Wondrous mighty was his singing--

 Verily a fiery pillar Moving on 'fore Israel's legions, Restless caravan of sorrow, Through the exile's desert plain. "

In his early youth the muse of poetry had imprinted a kiss upon Halevi'sbrow, and the gracious echo of that kiss trembles through all the poet'snumbers. Love, too, seems early to have taken up an abode in hissusceptible heart, but, as expressed in the poems of his youth, it isnot sensuous, earthly love, nor Gabirol's despondency and unselfishgrief, nor even the sentiment of Moses ibn Ezra's artisticallyconceived and technically perfect love-plaint. It is tender, yetpassionate, frankly extolling the happiness of requited love, and asnaively miserable over separation from his mistress, whom he calls Ophra(fawn). One of his sweetest songs he puts upon her lips:

 "Into my eyes he loving looked, My arms about his neck were twined, And in the mirror of my eyes, What but his image did he find?

 Upon my dark-hued eyes he pressed His lips with breath of passion rare. The rogue! 'Twas not my eyes he kissed; He kissed his picture mirrored there. "

Ophra's "Song of Joy" reminds one of the passion of the "Song of Songs":

 "He cometh, O bliss! Fly swiftly, ye winds, Ye odorous breezes, And tell him how long I've waited for this!

 O happy that night, When sunk on thy breast, Thy kisses fast falling, And drunken with love, My troth I did plight. 

 Again my sweet friend Embraceth me close. Yes, heaven doth bless us, And now thou hast won My love without end. "

His mistress' charms he describes with attractive grace:

 "My sweetheart's dainty lips are red, With ruby's crimson overspread; Her teeth are like a string of pearls; Adown her neck her clust'ring curls In ebon hue vie with the night; And o'er her features dances light. 

 The twinkling stars enthroned above Are sisters to my dearest love. We men should count it joy complete To lay our service at her feet. But ah! what rapture in her kiss! A forecast 'tis of heav'nly bliss!"

When the hour of parting from Ophra came, the young poet sang:

 "And so we twain must part! Oh linger yet, Let me still feed my glance upon thine eyes. Forget not, love, the days of our delight, And I our nights of bliss shall ever prize. In dreams thy shadowy image I shall see, Oh even in my dream be kind to me!"[49]

Yehuda Halevi sang not only of love, but also, in true Oriental fashion, and under the influence of his Arabic models, of wine and friendship. Onthe other hand, he is entirely original in his epithalamiums, charmingdescriptions of the felicity of young conjugal life and the sweetblessings of pure love. They are pervaded by the intensity of joy, andfull of roguish allusions to the young wife's shamefacedness, arousingthe jest and merriment of her guests, and her delicate shrinking in thepresence of longed-for happiness. Characteristically enough hisadmonitions to feed the fire of love are always followed by a sigh forhis people's woes:

 "You twain will soon be one, And all your longing filled. Ah me! will Israel's hope For freedom e'er be stilled?"

It is altogether probable that these blithesome songs belong to thepoet's early life. To a friend who remonstrates with him for his love ofwine he replies:

 "My years scarce number twenty-one-- Wouldst have me now the wine-cup shun?"

which would seem to indicate that love and wine were the pursuits of hisyouth. One of his prettiest drinking songs is the following:

 "My bowl yields exultation-- I soar aloft on song-tipped wing, Each draught is inspiration, My lips sip wine, my mouth must sing. 

 Dear friends are full of horror, Predict a toper's end for me. They ask: 'How long, O sorrow, Wilt thou remain wine's devotee?'

 Why should I not sing praise of drinking? The joys of Eden it makes mine. If age will bring no cowardly shrinking, Full many a year will I drink wine. "

But little is known of the events of the poet's career. History'sniggardliness, however, has been compensated for by the prodigality oflegend, which has woven many a fanciful tale about his life. Of one factwe are certain: when he had passed his fiftieth year, Yehuda Halevi lefthis native town, his home, his family, his friends, and disciples, tomake a pilgrimage to Palestine, the land wherein his heart had alwaysdwelt. His itinerary can be traced in his songs. They lead us to Egypt, to Zoan, to Damascus. In Tyre silence suddenly falls upon the singer. Did he attain the goal he had set out to reach? Did his eye behold theland of his fathers? Or did death overtake the pilgrim singer before hisjourney's end? Legend which has beautified his life has transfigured hisdeath. It is said, that struck by a Saracen's horse Yehuda Halevi sankdown before the very gates of Jerusalem. With its towers and battlementsin sight, and his inspired "Lay of Zion" on his lips, his pure soulwinged its flight heavenward. 

With the death of Yehuda Halevi, the golden age of neo-Hebraic poetry inSpain came to an end, and the period of the epigones was inaugurated. Anote of hesitancy is discernible in their productions, and theyacknowledge the superiority of their predecessors in the epithet"fathers of song" applied to them. The most noted of the later writerswas Yehuda ben Solomon Charisi. Fortune marked him out to be the criticof the great poetic creations of the brilliant epoch just closed, andhis fame rests upon the skill with which he acquitted himself of hisdifficult task. As for his poetry, it lacks the depth, the glow, thevirility, and inspiration of the works of the classical period. He was arestless wanderer, a poet tramp, roving in the Orient, in Africa, and inEurope. His most important work is his divan _Tachkemoni_, testifying tohis powers as a humorist, and especially to his mastery of the Hebrewlanguage, which he uses with dexterity never excelled. The divan touchesupon every possible subject: God and nature, human life and suffering, the relations between men, his personal experiences, and his adventuresin foreign parts. The first Makamat[50] writer among Jews, he furnishedthe model for all poems of the kind that followed; their first genuinehumorist, he flashes forth his wit like a stream of light suddenlyturned on in the dark. That he measured the worth of his productions bythe generous meed of praise given by his contemporaries is a venialoffense in the time of the troubadours and minnesingers. Charisi wasparticularly happy in his use of the "mosaic" style, and his short poemsand epigrams are most charming. Deep melancholy is a foil to his humor, but as often his writings are disfigured by levity. The following mayserve as samples of his versatile muse. The first is addressed to hisgrey hair:

 "Those ravens black that rested Erstwhile upon my head, Within my heart have nested, Since from my hair they fled. "

The second is inscribed to love's tears:

 "Within my heart I held concealed My love so tender and so true; But overflowing tears revealed What I would fain have hid from view. My heart could evermore repress The woe that tell-tale tears confess. "

Charisi is at his best when he gives the rein to his humor. Sparks fly;he stops at no caustic witticism, recoils from no satire; he is maliceitself, and puts no restraint upon his levity. The "Flea Song" is atypical illustration of his impish mood:

 "You ruthless flea, who desecrate my couch, And draw my blood to sate your appetite, You know not rest, on Sabbath day or feast-- Your feast it is when you can pinch and bite. 

 My friends expound the law: to kill a flea Upon the Sabbath day a sin they call; But I prefer that other law which says, Be sure a murd'rer's malice to forestall. "

That Charisi was a boon companion is evident from the following drinkingsong:

 "Here under leafy bowers, Where coolest shades descend, Crowned with a wreath of flowers, Here will we drink, my friend. 

 Who drinks of wine, he learns That noble spirits' strength But steady increase earns, As years stretch out in length. 

 A thousand earthly years Are hours in God's sight, A year in heav'n appears A minute in its flight. 

 I would this lot were mine: To live by heav'nly count, And drink and drink old wine At youth's eternal fount. "

Charisi and his Arabic models found many imitators among Spanish Jews. Solomon ibn Sakbel wrote Hebrew Makamat which may be regarded as anattempt at a satire in the form of a romance. The hero, Asher benYehuda, a veritable Don Juan, passes through most remarkableadventures. [51] The introductory Makama, describing life with hismistress in the solitude of a forest, is delicious. Tired of hismonotonous life, he joins a company of convivial fellows, who pass theirtime in carousal. While with them, he receives an enigmatic love lettersigned by an unknown woman, and he sets out to find her. On hiswanderings, oppressed by love's doubts, he chances into a harem, and isthreatened with death by its master. It turns out that the pasha is abeautiful woman, the slave of his mysterious lady-love, and she promiseshim speedy fulfilment of his wishes. Finally, close to the attainment ofhis end, he discovers that his beauty is a myth, the whole a practicaljoke perpetrated by his merry companions. So Asher ben Yehuda in questof his mistress is led from adventure to adventure. 

Internal evidence testifies against the genuineness of this romance, butat the same time with it appeared two other mock-heroic poems, "The Bookof Diversions" (_Sefer Sha'ashuim_) by Joseph ibn Sabara, and "The Giftof Judah the Misogynist" (_Minchatk Yehuda Soneh ha-Nashim_) by Judahibn Sabbataï, a Cordova physician, whose poems Charisi praised as the"fount of poesy. " The plot of his "Gift, " a satire on women, is asfollows:[52] His dying father exacts from Serach, the hero of theromance, a promise never to marry, women in his sight being the cause ofall the evil in the world. Curious as the behest is, it is still morecurious that Serach uncomplainingly complies, and most curious of all, that he finds three companions willing to retire with him to a distantisland, whence their propaganda for celibacy is to proceed. Scarcely hasthe news of their arrival spread, when a mass meeting of women iscalled, and a coalition formed against the misogynists. Korbi, an oldhag, engages to make Serach faithless to his principles. He soon has afalling out with his fellow-celibates, and succumbs to the fascinationsof a fair young temptress. After the wedding he discovers that hisenemies, the women, have substituted for his beautiful bride, a hideousold woman, Blackcoal, the daughter of Owl. She at once assumes the reinsof government most energetically, and answers her husband's groan ofdespair by the following curtain lecture:

 "Up! up! the time for sleep is past! And no resistance will I brook! Away with thee, and look to it That thou bringst me what I ask: Gowns of costly stuff, Earrings, chains, and veils; A house with many windows; Mortars, lounges, sieves, Baskets, kettles, pots, Glasses, settles, brooms, Beakers, closets, flasks, Shovels, basins, bowls, Spindle, distaff, blankets, Buckets, ewers, barrels, Skillets, forks, and knives; Vinaigrettes and mirrors; Kerchiefs, turbans, reticules, Crescents, amulets, Rings and jewelled clasps; Girdles, buckles, bodices, Kirtles, caps, and waists; Garments finely spun, Rare byssus from the East. This and more shalt thou procure, No matter at what cost and sacrifice. Thou art affrighted? Thou weepest? My dear, spare all this agitation; Thou'lt suffer more than this. The first year shall pass in strife, The second will see thee a beggar. A prince erstwhile, thou shalt become a slave; Instead of a crown, thou shalt wear a wreath of straw. "

Serach in abject despair turns for comfort to his three friends, and itis decided to bring suit for divorce in a general assembly. The womenappear at the meeting, and demand that the despiser of their sex beforced to keep his ugly wife. One of the trio of friends proposes thatthe matter be brought before the king. The poet appends no moral to histale; he leaves it to his readers to say: "And such must be the fate ofall woman-haters!"

Judah Sabbataï was evidently far from being a woman-hater himself, butsome of his contemporaries failed to understand the point of hiswitticisms and ridiculous situations. Yedaya Penini, another poet, looked upon it as a serious production, and in his allegory, "Woman'sFriend, " destitute of poetic inspiration, but brilliant in dialectics, undertook the defense of the fair sex against the misanthropicaspersions of the woman-hater. 

Such works are evidence that we have reached the age of the troubadoursand minnesingers, the epoch of the Renaissance, when, under the blue skyof Italy, and the fostering care of the trio of master-poets, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, the first germs of popular poetry wereunfolding. The Italian Jews were carried along by the all-pervadingspirit of the times, and had a share in the vigorous mental activityabout them. Suggestions derived from the work of the Renaissance leadersfell like electric sparks into Jewish literature and science, lightingthem up, and bringing them into rapport with the products of thehumanistic movement. Provence, the land of song, gave birth to Kalonymosben Kalonymos, later a resident of Italy, whose work, "Touchstone"(_Eben Bochan_) is the first true satire in neo-Hebraic poetry. It is amirror of morals held up before his people, for high and low, rabbis andleaders, poets and scholars, rich and poor, to see their foibles andfollies. The satire expresses a humorous, but lofty conception of life, based upon profound morality and sincere faith. It fulfils everyrequirement of a satire, steering clear of the pitfall caricature, andnot obtruding the didactic element. The lesson to be conveyed isinvolved in, not stated apart from the satire, an emanation from thepoet's disposition. His aim is not to ridicule, but to improve, instruct, influence. One of the most amusing chapters is that on woman'ssuperior advantages, which make him bewail his having been born aman:[53]

 "Truly, God's hand lies heavy on him Who has been created a man: Full many a trial he must patiently bear, And scorn and contumely of every kind. His life is like a field laid waste-- Fortunate he is if it lasts not too long! Were I, for instance, a woman, How smooth and pleasant were my course. A circle of intimate friends Would call me gentle, graceful, modest. Comfortably I'd sit with them and sew, With one or two mayhap at the spinning wheel. On moonlight nights Gathered for cozy confidences, About the hearthfire, or in the dark, We'd tell each other what the people say, The gossip of the town, the scandals, Discuss the fashions and the last election. I surely would rise above the average-- I would be an artist needlewoman, Broidering on silk and velvet The flowers of the field, And other patterns, copied from models, So rich in color as to make them seem nature-- Petals, trees, blossoms, plants, and pots, And castles, pillars, temples, angel heads, And whatever else can be imitated with needle by her Who guides it with art and skill. Sometimes, too, though 'tis not so attractive, I should consent to play the cook-- No less important task of woman 'tis To watch the kitchen most carefully. I should not be ruffled By dust and ashes on the hearth, by soot on stoves and pots; Nor would I hesitate to swing the axe And chop the firewood, And not to feed and rake the fire up, Despite the ashy dust that fills the nostrils. My particular delight it would be To taste of all the dishes served. And if some merry, joyous festival approached, Then would I display my taste. I would choose most brilliant gems for ear and hand, For neck and breast, for hair and gown, Most precious stuffs of silk and velvet, Whatever in clothes and jewels would increase my charms. And on the festal day, I would loud rejoice, Sing, and sway myself, and dance with vim. When I reached a maiden's prime, With all my charms at their height, What happiness, were heaven to favor me, Permit me to draw a prize in life's lottery, A youth of handsome mien, brave and true, With heart filled with love for me. If he declared his passion, I would return his love with all my might. Then as his wife, I would live a princess, Reclining on the softest pillows, My beauty heightened by velvet, silk, and tulle, By pearls and golden ornaments, Which he with lavish love would bring to me, To add to his delight and mine. "

After enumerating additional advantages enjoyed by the gentler sex, thepoet comes to the conclusion that protesting against fate is vain, andcloses his chapter thus:

 "Well, then, I'll resign myself to fate, And seek consolation in the thought that life comes to an end. Our sages tell us everywhere That for all things we must praise God, With loud rejoicing for all good, In submission for evil fortune. So I will force my lips, However they may resist, to say the olden blessing: My Lord and God accept my thanks That thou has made of me a man. "

One of Kalonymos's friends was Immanuel ben Solomon of Rome, called the"Heine of the middle ages, " and sometimes the "Jewish Voltaire. " Neithercomparison is apt. On the one hand, they give him too high a place as awriter, on the other, they do not adequately indicate his characteristicqualities. His most important work, the _Mechabberoth_, is a collectionof disjointed pieces, full of bold witticisms, poetic thoughts, andlinguistic charms. It is composed of poems, Makamat, parodies, novels, epigrams, distichs, and sonnets--all essentially humorous. The poetpresents things as they are, leaving it to reality to create ridiculoussituations. He is witty rather than humorous. Rarely only a spark ofkindliness or the glow of poetry transfigures his wit. He is uniformlyobjective, scintillating, cold, often frivolous, and not always chaste. To produce a comic effect, to make his readers laugh is his sole desire. Friend and admirer of Dante, he attained to a high degree of skill inthe sonnet. In neo-Hebraic poetry, his works mark the beginning of a newepoch. Indelicate witticisms and levity, until then sporadic in Jewishliterature, were by him introduced as a regular feature. The poetry ofthe earlier writers had dwelt upon the power of love, their muse wasmodest and chaste, a "rose of Sharon, " a "lily of the valleys. "Immanuel's was of coarser fibre; his witty sallies remind one of Italianrather than Hebrew models. A recent critic of Hebrew poetry speaks ofhis Makamat as a pendant to "Tristan and Isolde, "--in both sensualitytriumphs over spirituality. He is at his best in his sonnets, and ofthese the finest are in poetic prose. Female beauty is an unfailingsource of inspiration to him, but of trust in womankind he has none:

 "No woman ever faithful hold, Unless she ugly be and old. "

The full measure of mockery he poured out upon a deceived husband, andthe most cutting sarcasm at his command against an enemy is acomparison to crabbed, ugly women:

 "I loathe him with the hot and honest hate That fills a rake 'gainst maids he can not bait, With which an ugly hag her glass reviles, And prostitutes the youths who 'scape their wiles. "

His devotion to woman's beauty is altogether in the spirit of hisItalian contemporaries. One of his most pleasing sonnets is dedicated tohis lady-love's eyes:[54]

 "My sweet gazelle! From thy bewitching eyes A glance thrills all my soul with wild delight. Unfathomed depths beam forth a world so bright-- With rays of sun its sparkling splendor vies-- One look within a mortal deifies. Thy lips, the gates wherethrough dawn wings its flight, Adorn a face suffused with rosy light, Whose radiance puts to shame the vaulted skies. Two brilliant stars are they from heaven sent-- Their charm I cannot otherwise explain-- By God but for a little instant lent, Who gracious doth their lustrous glory deign, To teach those on pursuit of beauty bent, Beside those eyes all other beauty's vain. "

Immanuel's most congenial work, however, is as a satirist. One of hisbest known poems is a chain of distichs, drawing a comparison betweentwo maidens, Tamar the beautiful, and Beria the homely:

 "Tamar raises her eyelids, and stars appear in the sky; Her glance drops to earth, and flowers clothe the knoll whereon she stands. Beria looks up, and basilisks die of terror; Be not amazed; 'tis a sight that would Satan affright. Tamar's divine form human language cannot describe; The gods themselves believe her heaven's offspring. Beria's presence is desirable only in the time of vintage, When the Evil One can be banished by naught but grimaces. Tamar! Had Moses seen thee he had never made the serpent of copper, With thy image he had healed mankind. Beria! Pain seizes me, physic soothes, I catch sight of thee, and it returns with full force. Tamar, with ringlets adorned, greets early the sun, Who quickly hides, ashamed of his bald pate. Beria! were I to meet thee on New Year's Day in the morning, An omen 'twere of an inauspicious year. Tamar smiles, and heals the heart's bleeding wounds; She raises her head, the stars slink out of sight. Beria it were well to transport to heaven, Then surely heaven would take refuge on earth. Tamar resembles the moon in all respects but one-- Her resplendent beauty never suffers obscuration. Beria partakes of the nature of the gods; 'tis said, None beholds the gods without most awful repentance. Tamar, were the Virgin like thee, never would the sun Pass out of Virgo to shine in Libra. Beria, dost know why the Messiah tarries to bring deliverance to men? Redemption time has long arrived, but he hides from thee. "

With amazement we see the Hebrew muse, so serious aforetimes, participate in truly bacchanalian dances under Immanuel's guidance. Itis curious that while, on the one hand, he shrinks from no frivolousutterance or indecent allusion, on the other, he is dominated by deepearnestness and genuine warmth of feeling, when he undertakes to defendor expound the fundamentals of faith. It is characteristic of the trendof his thought that he epitomizes the "Song of Songs" in the sentence:"Love is the pivot of the _Torah_. " By a bold hypothesis it is assumedthat in Daniel, his guide in Paradise (in the twenty-eighth canto of hispoem), he impersonated and glorified his great friend Dante. If true, this would be an interesting indication of the intimate relationsexisting between a Jew and a circle devoted to the development of thenational genius in literature and language, and the stimulating of thesense of nature and truth in opposition to the fantastic visions andgrotesque ideals of the past. 

Everywhere, not only in Italy, the Renaissance and the humanisticmovement attract Jews. Among early Castilian troubadours there is a Jew, and the last troubadour of Spain again is a Jew. Naturally Italian Jewsare more profoundly than others affected by the renascence of scienceand art. David ben Yehuda, Messer Leon, is the author of an epic, _Shebach Nashim_ ("Praise of Women"), in which occurs an interestingreference to Petrarch's Laura, whom, in opposition to the consensus ofopinion among his contemporaries, he considers, not a figment of theimagination, but a woman of flesh and blood. Praise and criticism ofwomen are favorite themes in the poetic polemics of the sixteenthcentury. For instance, Jacob ben Elias, of Fano, in his "Shields ofHeroes, " a small collection of songs in stanzas of three verses, ventures to attack the weaker sex, for which Judah Tommo of Porta Leoneat once takes up the cudgels in his "Women's Shield. " At the same time agenuine song combat broke out between Abraham of Sarteano and Elias ofGenzano. The latter is the champion of the purity of womanhood, impugnedby the former, who in fifty tercets exposes the wickedness of woman inthe most infamous of her sex, from Lilith to Jezebel, from Semiramis toMedea. An anonymous combatant lends force to his strictures by anarraignment of the lax morals of the women of their own time, while afourth knight of song, evidently intending to conciliate the parties, begins his "New Song, " only a fragment of which has reached us, withpraise, and ends it with blame, of woman. Such productions, too, are aresult of the Renaissance, of its romantic current, which, as itaffected Catholicism, did not fail to leave its mark upon the Jews, among whom romanticists must have had many a battle to fight withadherents of traditional views. 

Meantime, neo-Hebraic poetry had "fallen into the sear, the yellowleaf. " Poetry drooped under the icy breath of rationalism, and vanishedinto the abyss of the Kabbala. At most we occasionally hear of a polemicpoem, a keen-edged epigram. For the rest, there was only a monotonoussuccession of religious poems, repeating the old formulas, dry bones ofhabit and tradition, no longer informed with true poetic, religiousspirit. Yet the source of love and humor in Jewish poetry had not rundry. It must be admitted that the sentimentalism of the minneservice, peculiar to the middle ages, never took root in Jewish soil. Paleresignation, morbid despair, longing for death, unmanly indulgence inregret, all the paraphernalia of chivalrous love, extolled in every keyin the poetry of the middle ages, were foreign to the sane Jewish mind. Women, the object of unreasoning adulation, shared the fate of allsovereign powers: homage worked their ruin. They became accustomed tothink that the weal and woe of the world depended upon their constancyor disloyalty. Jews alone were healthy enough to subordinate sexual loveto reverence for maternity. Holding an exalted idea of love, theyrealized that its power extends far beyond the lives of two persons, andaffects the well-being of generations unborn. Such love, intellectuallove, which Benedict Spinoza was the first to define from a scientificand philosophic point of view, looks far down the vistas of the future, and gives providential thought to the race. 

While humor and romanticism everywhere in the middle ages appeared asirreconcilable contrasts, by Jews they were brought into harmoniousrelationship. When humor was banished from poetry, it took refuge inJewish-German literature, that spiritual undercurrent produced by theclaims of fancy as opposed to the aggressive, all absorbing demands ofreason. Not to the high and mighty, but to the lowly in spirit, thelittle ones of the earth, to women and children, it made its appeal, andfrom them its influence spread throughout the nation, bringingrefreshment and sustenance to weary, starved minds, hope to theoppressed, and consolation to the afflicted. Consolation, indeed, wassorely needed by the Jews on their peregrinations during the middleages. Sad, inexpressibly sad, was their condition. With fatalexclusiveness they devoted themselves to the study of the Talmud. Secular learning was deprecated; antagonism to science and vagariescharacterized their intellectual life; philosophy was formallyinterdicted; the Hebrew language neglected; all their wealth and forceof intellect lavished upon the study of the Law, and even here everyfaculty--reason, ingenuity, speculation--busied itself only with highlyartificial solutions of equally artificial problems, far-fetchedcomplications, and vexatious contradictions invented to be harmonized. Under such grievous circumstances, oppression growing with malice, Jewish minds and hearts were robbed of humor, and the exercise of lovewas made a difficult task. Is it astonishing that in such days a rabbiin the remote Slavonic East should have issued an injunction restraininghis sisters in faith from reading romances on the Sabbath--romancescomposed by some other rabbi in Provence or Italy five hundred yearsbefore?

Sorrow and suffering are not endless. A new day broke for the Jews. Thewalls of the Ghetto fell, dry bones joined each other for new life, anda fresh spirit passed over the House of Israel. Enervation and decadencewere succeeded by regeneration, quickened by the spirit of the times, bythe ideas of freedom and equality universally advocated. The forceswhich culminated in their revival had existed as germs in the precedingcentury. Silently they had grown, operating through every spiritualmedium, poetry, oratory, philosophy, political agitation. In thesunshine of the eighteenth century they finally matured, and at itsclose the rejuvenation of the Jewish race was an accomplished fact inevery European country. Eagerly its sons entered into the newintellectual and literary movements of the nations permitted to enjoyanother period of efflorescence, and Jewish humor has conquered a placefor itself in modern literature. 

Our brief journey through the realm of love and humor must certainlyconvince us that in sunny days humor rarely, love never, forsook Israel. Our old itinerant preachers (_Maggidim_), strolling from town to town, were in the habit of closing their sermons with a parable (_Mashai_), which opened the way to exhortation. The manner of our fathersrecommends itself to me, and following in their footsteps, I venture toclose my pilgrimage through the ages with a _Mashal_. It transports usto the sunny Orient, to the little seaport town of Jabneh, about sixmiles from Jerusalem, in the time immediately succeeding the destructionof the Temple. Thither with a remnant of his disciples, Jochanan benZakkaï, one of the wisest of our rabbis, fled to escape the miseryincident to the downfall of Jerusalem. He knew that the Temple wouldnever again rise from its ashes. He knew as well that the essence ofJudaism has no organic connection with the Temple or the Holy City. Heforesaw that its mission is to spread abroad among the nations of theearth, and of this future he spoke to the disciples gathered about himin the academy at Jabneh. We can imagine him asking them to define thefundamental principle of Judaism, and receiving a multiplicity ofanswers, varying with the character and temper of the youngmissionaries. To one, possibly, Judaism seemed to rest upon faith inGod, to another upon the Sabbath, to a third upon the _Torah_, to afourth upon the Decalogue. Such views could not have satisfied thespiritual cravings of the aged teacher. When Jochanan ben Zakkaï risesto give utterance to his opinion, we feel as though the narrow walls ofthe academy at Jabneh were miraculously widening out to enclose theworld, while the figure of the venerable rabbi grows to the nobleproportions of a divine seer, whose piercing eye rends the veil offuturity, and reads the remote verdict of history: "My disciples, myfriends, the fundamental principle of Judaism is love!"

THE JEWISH STAGE

Perhaps no people has held so peculiar a position with regard to thedrama as the Jews. Little more than two centuries have passed since aJewish poet ventured to write a drama, and now, if division by race beadmissible in literary matters, Jews indisputably rank among the firstof those interested in the drama, both in its composition andpresentation. 

Originally, the Hebrew mind felt no attraction towards the drama. Hebrewpoetry attained to neither dramatic nor epic creations, because theall-pervading monotheistic principle of the nation paralyzed the freeand easy marshalling of gods and heroes of the Greek drama. Nevertheless, traces of dramatic poetry appear in the oldest literature. The "Song of Songs" by many is regarded as a dramatic idyl in sevenscenes, with Shulammith as the heroine, and the king, the ostensibleauthor, as the hero. But this and similar efforts are only faintapproaches to dramatic composition, inducing no imitations. 

Greek and Roman theatrical representations, the first they knew, musthave awakened lively interest in the Jews. It was only after Alexanderthe Great's triumphal march through the East, and the establishment ofRoman supremacy over Judæa, that a foothold was gained in Palestine bythe institutions called theatre by the ancients; that is, _stadia_;circuses for wrestling, fencing, and combats between men and animals;and the stage for tragedies and other plays. To the horror of piouszealots, the Jewish Hellenists, in other words, Jews imbued with thesecular culture of the day, built a gymnasium for the wrestling andfencing contests of the Jewish youth of Jerusalem, soon to be furtherdefiled by the circus and the _stadium_. According to Flavius Josephus, Herod erected a theatre at Jerusalem twenty-eight years before thepresent era, and in the vicinity of the city, an amphitheatre whereGreek players acted, and sang to the accompaniment of the lyre or flute. 

The first, and at his time probably the only, Jewish dramatist was theGreek poet Ezekielos (Ezekiel), who flourished in about 150 before thecommon era. In his play, "The Exodus from Egypt, " modelled afterEuripides, Moses, as we know him in the Bible, is the hero. Otherwisethe play is thoroughly Hellenic, showing the Greek tendency to becomedidactic and reflective and use the heroes of sacred legend as humantypes. Besides, two fragments of Jewish-Hellenic dramas, in trimeterverse, have come down to us, the one treating of the unity of God, theother of the serpent in Paradise. 

To the mass of the Jewish people, particularly to the expounders andscholars of the Law, theatrical performances seemed a desecration, asin. A violent struggle ensued between the _Beth ha-Midrash_ and thestage, between the teachers of the Law and lovers of art, betweenRabbinism and Hellenism. Mindful of Bible laws inculcating humanity tobeasts and men, the rabbis could not fail to deprecate gladiatorialcontests, and in their simple-mindedness they must have revolted fromthe themes of the Greek playwright, dishonesty, violence triumphant, andconjugal infidelity being then as now favorite subjects of dramaticrepresentations. The immorality of the stage was, if possible, moreconspicuous in those days than in ours. 

This was the point of view assumed by the rabbis in their exhortationsto the people, and a conspiracy against King Herod was the result. Theplotters one evening appeared at the theatre, but their designs werefrustrated by the absence of the king and his suite. The plot betrayeditself, and one of the members of the conspiracy was seized and torninto pieces by the mob. The most uncompromising rabbis pronounced acurse over frequenters of the theatre, and raised abstinence from itspleasures to the dignity of a meritorious action, inasmuch as it was thescene of idolatrous practices, and its _habitués_ violated theadmonition contained in the first verse of the psalms. "Cursed be theywho visit the theatre and the circus, and despise our laws, " one of themexclaims. [55] Another interprets the words of the prophet: "I sat not inthe assembly of the mirthful, and was rejoiced, " by the prayer: "Lord ofthe universe, never have I visited a theatre or a circus to enjoymyself in the company of scorners. "

Despite rampant antagonism, the stage worked its way into the affectionand consideration of the Jewish public, and we hear of Jewish youthsdevoting themselves to the drama and becoming actors. Only one has comedown to us by name: the celebrated Alityros in Rome, the favorite ofEmperor Nero and his wife Poppæa. Josephus speaks of him as "a player, and a Jew, well favored by Nero. " When the Jewish historian landed atPuteoli, a captive, Alityros presented him to the empress, who securedhis liberation. Beyond a doubt, the Jewish _beaux esprits_ of Romewarmly supported the theatre; indeed, Roman satirists levelled theirshafts against the zeal displayed in the service of art by Jewishpatrons. 

A reaction followed. Theatrical representations were pursued by TalmudicJudaism with the same bitter animosity as by Christianity. Not a matterof surprise, if account is taken of the licentiousness of the stage, sodepraved as to evoke sharp reproof even from a Cicero, and the hostilityof playwrights to Jews and Christians, whom they held up as a butt forthe ridicule of the Roman populace. Talmudic literature has preservedseveral examples of the buffooneries launched against Judaism. RabbiAbbayu tells the following:[56] A camel covered with a mourning blanketis brought upon the stage, and gives rise to a conversation. "Why isthe camel trapped in mourning?" "Because the Jews, who are observing thesabbatical year, abstain from vegetables, and refuse to eat even herbs. They eat only thistles, and the camel is mourning because he is deprivedof his favorite food. "

Another time a buffoon appears on the stage with head shaved close. "Whyis the clown mourning?" "Because oil is so dear. " "Why is oil dear?" "Onaccount of the Jews. On the Sabbath day they consume everything theyearn during the week. Not a stick of wood is left to make fire wherebyto cook their meals. They are forced to burn their beds for fuel, andsleep on the floor at night. To get rid of the dirt, they use an immensequantity of oil. Therefore, oil is dear, and the clown cannot grease hishair with pomade. " Certainly no one will deny that the patrons of theRoman theatre were less critical than a modern audience. 

Teachers of the Law had but one answer to make to such attacks--arigorous injunction against theatre-going. On this subject rabbis andChurch Fathers were of one mind. The rabbi's declaration, that he whoenters a circus commits murder, is offspring of the same holy zeal thatdictates Tertullian's solemn indignation: "In no respect, neither byspeaking, nor by seeing, nor by hearing, have we part in the mad anticsof the circus, the obscenity of the theatre, or the abominations of thearena. " Such expressions prepare one for the passion of anotherremonstrant who, on a Sabbath, explained to his audience thatearthquakes are the signs of God's fierce wrath when He looks down uponearth, and sees theatres and circuses flourish, while His sanctuary liesin ruins. [57]

Anathemas against the stage were vain. One teacher of the Law, in themiddle of the second century, went so far as to permit attendance at thecircus and the _stadium_ for the very curious reason that the spectatormay haply render assistance to the charioteers in the event of anaccident on the race track, or may testify to their death at court, andthus enable their widows to marry again. Another pious rabbi expressesthe hope that theatres and circuses at Rome at some future time may "beconverted into academies of virtue and morality. "

Such liberal views were naturally of extremely rare occurrence. Manycenturies passed before Jews in general were able to overcome antipathyto the stage and all connected with it. Pagan Rome with its artisticcreations was to sink, and the new Christian drama, springing from theruins of the old theatre, but making the religious its central idea, wasto develop and invite imitation before the first germ of interest indramatic subjects ventured to show itself in Jewish circles. The firstJewish contribution to the drama dates from the ninth century. The storyof Haman, arch-enemy of the Jews, was dramatized in celebration of_Purim_, the Jewish carnival. The central figure was Haman's effigywhich was burnt, amid song, music, and general merrymaking, on a smallpyre, over which the participants jumped a number of times in gleefulrejoicing over the downfall of their worst enemy--extravagancepardonable in a people which, on every other day of the year, totteredunder a load of distress and oppression. 

This dramatic effort was only a sporadic phenomenon. Real, uninterruptedparticipation in dramatic art by Jews cannot be recorded until fully sixhundred years later. Meantime the Spanish drama, the first to adaptBible subjects to the uses of the stage, had reached its highestdevelopment. By reason of its choice of subjects it proved so attractiveto Jews that scarcely fifty years after the appearance of the firstSpanish-Jewish playwright, a Spanish satirist deplores, in cuttingverse, the Judaizing of dramatic poetry. In fact, the first originaldrama in Spanish literature, the celebrated _Celestina_, is attributedto a Jew, the Marrano Rodrigo da Cota. "Esther, " the first distinctlyJewish play in Spanish, was written in 1567 by Solomon Usque in Ferrarain collaboration with Lazaro Graziano. The subject treated centuriesbefore in a roughshod manner naturally suggested itself to a genuinedramatist, who chose it in order to invest it with the dignity conferredby poetic art. This first essay in the domain of the Jewish drama wasfollowed by a succession of dramatic creations by Jews, who, exiled fromSpain, cherished the memory of their beloved country, and, carrying totheir new homes in Italy and Holland, love for its language andliterature, wrote all their works, dramas included, in Spanish afterSpanish models. So fruitful was their activity that shortly after theexile we hear of a "Jewish Calderon, " the author of more than twenty-twoplays, some long held to be the work of Calderon himself, and thereforereceived with acclamation in Madrid. The real author, whose place inSpanish literature is assured, was Antonio Enriquez di Gomez, a Marrano, burnt in effigy at Seville after his escape from the clutches of theInquisition. His dramas in part deal with biblical subjects. Samson isobviously the mouthpiece of his own sentiments:

 "O God, my God, the time draws quickly nigh! Now let a ray of thy great strength descend! Make firm my hand to execute the deed That alien rule upon our soil shall end!"

Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the Portuguese languageusurped the place of Spanish among Jews, and straightway we hear of aJewish dramatist, Antonio Jose de Silva (1705-1739), one of the mostillustrious of Portuguese poets, whose dramas still hold their own onthe repertory of the Portuguese stage. He was burnt at the stake, amartyr to his faith, which he solemnly confessed in the hour of hisexecution: "I am a follower of a faith God-given according to your ownteachings. God once loved this religion. I believe He still loves it, but because you maintain that He no longer turns upon it the light ofHis countenance, you condemn to death those convinced that God has notwithdrawn His grace from what He once favored. " It is by no means animprobable combination of circumstances that on the evening of the daywhereon Antonio Jose de Silva expired at the stake, an operetta writtenby the victim himself was played at the great theatre of Lisbon incelebration of the auto-da-fé. 

Jewish literature as such derived little increase from this poeticactivity among Jews. In the period under discussion a single Hebrewdrama was produced which can lay claim to somewhat more praise than isthe due of mediocrity. _Asireh ha-Tikwah_, "The Prisoners of Hope, "printed in 1673, deserves notice because it was the first dramapublished in Hebrew, and its author, Joseph Pensa de la Vega, was thelast of Spanish, as Antonio de Silva was the last of Portuguese, Jewishpoets. The three act play is an allegory, treating of the victory offree-will, represented by a king, over evil inclinations, personified bythe handsome lad Cupid. Though imbued with the solemnity of hisresponsibilities as a ruler, the king is lured from the path of right byvarious persons and circumstances, chief among them Cupid, hiscoquettish queen, and his sinful propensities. The opposing good forcesare represented by the figures of harmony, Providence, and truth, andthey eventually lead the erring wanderer back to the road of salvation. The _dramatis personæ_ of this first Hebrew drama are abstractions, devoid of dramatic life, mere allegorical personifications, but theunderlying idea is poetic, and the Hebrew style pure, euphonious, andrhythmical. Yet it is impossible to echo the enthusiasm which greetedthe work of the seventeen year old author in the Jewish academies ofHolland. Twenty-one poets sang its praises in Latin, Hebrew, and Spanishverse. The following couplet may serve as a specimen of their eulogies:

 "At length Israel's muse assumes the tragic cothurn, And happily wends her way through the metre's mazes. "

Pensa, though the first to publish, was not the first Hebrew dramatistto write. The distinction of priority belongs to Moses Zacuto, who wrotehis Hebrew play, _Yesod Olam_[58] ("The Foundation of the World") aquarter of a century earlier. His subject is the persecution inflictedby idolaters upon Abraham on account of his faith, and the groundwork isthe Haggadistic narrative about Abraham's bold opposition to idolatrouspractices, and his courage even unto death in the service of the trueGod. According to Talmudic interpretation a righteous character of thisdescription is one of the corner-stones of the universe. It must beadmitted that Zacuto's work is a drama with a purpose. The poet wishedto fortify his exiled, harassed people with the inspiration and hopethat flow from the contemplation of a strong, bold personality. But theadmission does not detract from the genuine merits of the poem. On theother hand, this first dramatic effort naturally is crude, lacking inthe poetic forms supplied by highly developed art. Dialogues, prayers, and choruses follow each other without regularity, and in varyingmetres, not destitute, however, of poetic sentiment and lyric beauties. Often the rhythm rises to a high degree of excellence, even elevation. Like Pensa, Zacuto was the disciple of great masters, and a comparisonof either with Lope de Vega and Calderon will reveal the same southernwarmth, stilted pathos, exuberance of fancy, wealth of imagery, excessive playing upon words, peculiar turns and phrases, erratic style, and other qualities characteristic of Spanish dramatic poetry in thatperiod. 

Another century elapsed before the muse of the Hebrew drama escaped fromleading strings. Moses Chayyim Luzzatto (1707-1747) of Padua was a poetof true dramatic gifts, and had he lived at another time he might haveattained to absolute greatness of performance. Unluckily, thesentimental, impressionable youth became hopelessly enmeshed in thesnares of mysticism. In his seventeenth year he composed a biblicaldrama, "Samson and the Philistines, " the preserved fragments of whichare faultless in metre. His next effort was an allegorical drama, _Migdal Oz_ ("Tower of Victory"), the style and moral of which showunmistakable signs of Italian inspiration, derived particularly fromGuarini and his _Pastor Fido_, models not wholly commendable at a timewhen Maffei's _Merope_ was exerting wholesome influence upon the Italiandrama in the direction of simplicity and dignity. Nothing, however, could wean Luzzatto from adherence to Spanish-Italian romanticism. Hishappiest creation is the dramatic parable, _Layesharim Tehillah_("Praise unto the Righteous!"). The poetry of the Bible here celebratesits resurrection. The rhythm and exuberance of the Psalms are reproducedin the tone and color of its language. "All the fragrant flowers ofbiblical poetry are massed in a single bed. Yet the language is morethan a mosaic of biblical phrases. It is an enamel of the most superband the rarest of elegant expressions in the Bible. The peculiarities ofthe historical writings are carefully avoided, while all modificationsof style peculiar to poetry are gathered together to constitute what mayfairly be called a vocabulary of poetic diction. "[59]

The allegory _Layesharim Tehillah_ is full of charming traits, but lackswarmth, naturalness, and human interest, the indispensable elements ofdramatic action. The first act treats of the iniquity of men who prizedeceit beyond virtue, and closes with the retirement of the pious sageto solitude. The second act describes the hopes of the righteous man andhis fate, and the third sounds the praise of truth and justice. Thethread of the story is slight, and the characters are pale phantoms, instead of warm-blooded men. Yet the work must be pronounced a gem ofneo-Hebraic poetry, an earnest of the great creations its author mighthave produced, if in early youth he had not been caught in the swirlingwaters, and dragged down into the abysmal depths of Kabbalisticmysticism. Despite his vagaries his poems were full of suggestivenessand stimulation to many of his race, who were inspired to work along thelines laid down by him. He may be considered to have inaugurated anotherepoch of classical Hebrew literature, interpenetrated with the modernspirit, which the Jewish dramas of his day are vigorously successful inclothing in a Hebrew garb. 

In the popular literature in Jewish-German growing up almost unnoticedbeside classical Hebrew literature, we find popular plays, comedies, chiefly farces for the _Purim_ carnival. The first of them, "The Sale ofJoseph" (_Mekirath Yoseph_, 1710), treats the biblical narrative in theform and spirit of the German farcical clown dialogues, Pickelhering(Merry-Andrew), borrowed from the latter, being Potiphar's servant andcounsellor. No dramatic or poetic value of any kind attaches to theplay. It is as trivial as any of its models, the German clown comedies, and possesses interest only as an index to the taste of the public, which surely received it with delight. Strangely enough the principalscene between Joseph and Selicha, Potiphar's wife, is highly discreet. In a monologue, she gives passionate utterance to her love. Then Josephappears, and she addresses him thus:

 "Be welcome, Joseph, dearest one, My slave who all my heart has won! I beg of thee grant my request! So oft have I to thee confessed, My love for thee is passing great. In vain for answering love I wait. Have not so tyrannous a mind, Be not so churlish, so unkind-- I bear thee such affection, see, Why wilt thou not give love to me?"

Joseph answers:

 "I owe my lady what she asks, Yet this is not among my tasks. I pray, my mistress, change thy mind; Thou canst so many like me find. How could I dare transgress my state, And my great trust so violate? My lord hath charged me with his house, Excepting only his dear spouse; Yet she, it seems, needs watching too. Now, mistress, fare thee well, adieu!"

Selicha then says:

 "O heaven now what shall I do? He'll list not to my vows so true. Come, Pickelhering, tell me quick, What I shall do his love to prick? I'll die if I no means can find To bend his humor to my mind. I'll give thee gold, thou mayst depend, If thou'lt but help me to my end. "

Pickelhering appears, and says:

 "My lady, here I am, thy slave, My wisest counsel thou shalt have. Thou must lay violent hand on him, And say: 'Unless thou'lt grant my whim, I'll drive thee hence from out my court, And with thy woes I'll have my sport, Nor will I stay thy punishment, Till drop by drop thy blood is spent. ' Perhaps he will amend his way, If thou such cruel words wilt say. "

Selicha follows his advice, but being thwarted, again appeals toPickelhering, who says:

 "My lady fair, pray hark to me, My counsel now shall fruitful be. A garbled story shalt thou tell The king, and say: 'Hear what befell: Thy servant Joseph did presume To enter in my private room, When no one was about the house Who could protect thy helpless spouse. See here his mantle left behind. Seize him, my lord, the miscreant find. '"

Potiphar appears, Selicha tells her tale, and Pickelhering is sent inquest of Joseph, who steps upon the scene to be greeted by his master'sfar from gentle reproaches:

 "Thou gallowsbird, thou good-for-naught! Thou whom so true and good I thought! 'Twere just to take thy life from thee. But no! still harsher this decree: In dungeon chained shalt thou repine, Where neither sun nor moon can shine. Forever there bewail thy lot unheard; Now leave my sight, begone, thou gallowsbird. '"

This ends the scene. Of course, at the last, Joseph escapes his doom, and, to the great joy of the sympathetic public, is raised to highdignities and honors. 

This farce was presented at Frankfort-on-the-Main by Jewish students ofthe city, aided by some from Hamburg and Prague, with extravagantdisplay of scenery. Tradition ascribes the authorship to a certainBeermann. 

"Ahasverus" is of similar coarse character, so coarse, indeed, that thedirectors of the Frankfort Jewish community, exercising their rights asliterary censors, forbade its performance, and had the printed copiesburnt. A somewhat more refined comedy is _Acta Esther et Achashverosh_, published at Prague in 1720, and enacted there by the pupils of thecelebrated rabbi David Oppenheim, "on a regular stage with drums andother instruments. " "The Deeds of King David and Goliath, " and atravesty, "Haman's Will and Death" also belong to the category of Purimfarces. 

By an abrupt transition we pass from their consideration to the Hebrewclassical drama modelled after the pattern of Moses Chayyim Luzzatto's. Greatest attention was bestowed upon historical dramas, notably those onthe trials and fortunes of Marranos, the favorite subjects treated byDavid Franco Mendez, Samuel Romanelli, and others. Although theirlanguage is an almost pure classical Hebrew, the plot is conceivedwholly in the spirit of modern times. At the end of the eighteenthcentury, a large number of writers turned to Bible heroes and heroinesfor dramatic uses, and since then Jewish interest in the drama has neverflagged. The luxuriant fruitfulness of these late Jewish playwrights, standing in the sunlight of modern days, fully compensates for thesterility of the Jewish dramatic muse during the centuries of darkness. 

The first Jewish dramatist to use German was Benedict David Arnstein, ofVienna, author of a large number of plays, comedies and melodramas, someof which have been put upon the boards of the Vienna imperial theatre(_Burgtheater_). He was succeeded by L. M. Büschenthal, whose drama, "King Solomon's Seal, " was performed at the royal theatre of Berlin. Since his time poets of Jewish race have enriched dramatic literature inall its departments. Their works belong to general literature, and neednot be individualized in this essay. 

In the province of dramatic music, too, Jews have made a prominentposition for themselves. It suffices to mention Meyerbeer and Offenbach, representatives of two widely divergent departments of the art. Again, to assert the prominence of Jews as actors is uttering a truism. AdolfJellinek, one of the closest students of the racial characteristics ofJews, thinks that they are singularly well equipped for the theatricalprofession by reason of their marked subjectivity, which always inducesobjective, disinterested devotion to a purpose, and theircosmopolitanism, which enables them to transport themselves with easeinto a new world of thought. [60] "It is natural that a race whosereligious, literary, and linguistic development in hundreds of instancesproves unique talent to adapt itself with marvellous facility to theintellectual life of various countries and nations, should bring forthindividuals gifted with power to project themselves into a charactercreated by art, and impersonate it with admirable accuracy in thesmallest detail. What the race as a whole has for centuries been doingspontaneously and by virtue of innate characteristics, can surely bedone with greater perfection by some of its members under theconsciously accepted guidance of the laws of art. " Many Jewish racepeculiarities--quick perception, vivacity, declamatory pathos, perfervidimagination--are prime qualifications for the actor's career, and suchnames as Bogumil Davison, Adolf Sonnenthal, Rachel Felix, and SarahBernhardt abundantly illustrate the general proposition. 

Strenuous efforts to ascertain the name of the first Jewish actor inGermany have been unavailing. Possibly it was the unnamed artist forwhom, at his brother's instance, Lessing interceded at the Mannheimnational theatre. 

Legion is the name of the Jewish artists of this century who haveattained to prominence in every department of the dramatic art, in everycountry, even the remotest, on the globe. Travellers in Russia tell ofthe crowds that evening after evening flock to the Jewish-Germantheatres at Odessa, Kiev, and Warsaw. The plays performed areadaptations of the best dramatic works of all modern nations. Weoutside of Russia have been made acquainted with the character of theseperformances by the melodrama "Shulammith, " enacted at various theatresby a Jewish-German _opera bouffe_ company from Warsaw, and the writeronce--can he ever forget it?--saw "Hamlet" played by jargon actors. WhenHamlet offers advice to Ophelia in the words: "Get thee to a nunnery!"she promptly retorts: _Mit Eizes bin ich versehen, mein Prinz!_ (Withgood advice I am well supplied, my lord!). 

The actor recalled by the recent centennial celebration of the firstperformance of "The Magic Flute" must have been among the first Jews toadopt the stage as a profession. The first presentation, at onceestablishing the success of the opera, took place at Prague. Accordingto the _Prager Neue Zeitung_ an incident connected with that originalperformance was of greater interest than the opera itself: "On the tenthof last month, the new piece, 'The Magic Flute, ' was produced. Ihastened to the theatre, and found that the part of Sarastro was takenby a well-formed young man with a caressing voice who, as I was told tomy great surprise, was a Jew--yes, a Jew. He was visibly embarrassedwhen he first appeared, proving that he was a human being subject to theordinary laws of nature and to the average mortal's weaknesses. Noticinghis stage-fright, the audience tried to encourage him by applause. Itsucceeded, for he sang and spoke his lines with grace and dignity. Atthe end he was called out and applauded vigorously. In short, I foundthe Prague public very different from its reputation with us. It knowshow to appreciate merit even when possessed by an Israelite, and I aminclined to think that it criticises harshly only when there is justreason for complaint. Hartung, the Jewish actor, will soon appear inother rôles, and doubtless will justify the applause of the public. "

To return, in conclusion, to the classical drama in Hebrew. Thoughpatterned after the best classical models, and enriched by the noblecreations of S. L. Romanelli, M. E. Letteris, the translator of _Faust_, A. Gottloeber, and others, Hebrew dramas belong to the large class ofplays for the closet, unsuited for the stage. This dramatic literaturecontains not only original creations; the masterpieces of allliteratures--the works of Shakespere, Racine, Molière, Goethe, Schiller, and Lessing--have been put into the language of the prophets and thepsalmists, and, infected by the vigor of their thought, the ancienttongue has been re-animated with the vitality of undying youth. 

THE JEW'S QUEST IN AFRICA

Citizens of ancient Greece conversing during the _entr'actes_ of a firstperformance at the national theatre of Olympia were almost sure to askeach other, after the new play had been discussed: "What news fromAfrica?" Through Aristotle the proverb has come down to us: "Africaalways brings us something new. " Hence the question: _Quid novi exAfrica?_[61]

If ever two old rabbis in the _Beth ha-Midrash_ at Cyrene stole a chatin the intervals of their lectures, the same question probably passedbetween them. For, Africa has always claimed the interest of thecultured. Jewish-German legend books place the scenes of their mostmysterious myths in the "Dark Continent, " and I remember distinctly howwe youngsters on Sabbath afternoons used to crowd round our dear oldgrandmother, who, great bowed spectacles on her nose, would read to usfrom "Yosippon. " On many such occasions an unruly listener, with a viewto hurrying the distribution of the "Sabbathfruit, " would endanger thestability of the dish by vigorous tugging at the table-cloth, and elicitthe reproof suggested by our reading: "You are a veritableSambation!"--Aristotle, Pliny, Olympia, Cyrene, "Yosippon, " andgrandam--all unite to whet our appetite for African novelties. 

Never has interest in the subject been more active than in ourgeneration, and the question, "What is the quest of the Jews in Africa?"might be applied literally to the achievements of individual Jewishtravellers. But our inquiry shall not be into the fortunes of Africanexplorers of Jewish extraction; not into Emin Pasha's journey to Wadelaiand Magungo; not into the advisability of colonizing Russian Jews inAfrica; nor even into the rôle played by a part of northern Africa inthe development of Jewish literature and culture: briefly, "The Jew'squest in Africa" is for the remnants of the ten lost tribes. 

For more than eight hundred years, Israel, entrenched on his own soil, bade defiance to every enemy. After the death of Solomon (978 B. C. E. ), the kingdom was divided, its power declining in consequence. Theworld-monarchy Assyria became an adversary to be feared after Ahaz, kingof Judah, invited it to assist him against Pekah. Tiglath-Pileserconquered a part of the kingdom of Israel, and, in about the middle ofthe eighth century, carried off its subjects captive into Assyria. Inthe reign of Hosea, Shalmaneser finished what his predecessor had begun(722), utterly destroying the kingdom of the north in the two hundredand fifty-eighth year of its independence. Before the catastrophe, apart of its inhabitants had emigrated to Arabia, so that there wereproperly speaking only nine tribes, called by their prophets, chiefamong them Hosea and Amos, Ephraim from the most powerful member of theconfederacy. Another part went to Adiabene, a district on the boundarybetween Assyria and Media, and thence scattered in all directionsthrough the kingdom of the Medes and Persians. 

The prophets of the exile still hope for their return. Isaiah says:[62]"The Lord will put forth His hand again the second time to acquire theremnant of his people, which shall remain, from Asshur, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, andfrom Chamath, and from the islands of the sea. And he will lift up anensign unto the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel; andthe dispersed of Judah will he collect together from the four corners ofthe earth. . . . Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not assailEphraim. . . . And the Lord will utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptiansea. . . . And there shall be a highway for the remnant of his people, which shall remain from Asshur, like as it was to Israel on the day thatthey came up out of the land of Egypt. " In Jeremiah[63] we read: "BeholdI will bring them from the north country, and I will gather them fromthe farthest ends of the earth . . . For I am become a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first-born. " Referring to this passage, the Talmudmaintains that the prophet Jeremiah led the lost tribes back toPalestine. 

The second Isaiah[64] says "to the prisoners, Go forth; to those thatare in darkness, Show yourselves. " "Ye shall be gathered up one byone. . . . And it shall come to pass on that day that the great cornetshall be blown, and then shall come those that are lost in the land ofAsshur, and those who are outcasts in the land of Egypt, and they shallprostrate themselves before the Lord on the holy mount at Jerusalem. "

And Ezekiel:[65] "Thou son of man, take unto thyself one stick of wood, and write upon it, 'For Judah, and for the children of Israel hiscompanions'; then take another stick, and write upon it, 'For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions':and join them one to the other unto thee as one stick; and they shallbecome one in thy hand. "

These prophetical passages show that at the time of the establishment ofthe second commonwealth the new homes of the ten tribes were accuratelyknown. After that, for more than five hundred years, history is silenton the subject. From frequent allusions in the prophetical writings, wemay gather that efforts were made to re-unite Judah and the tribes ofIsrael, and it seems highly probable that they were successful, such ofthe ten tribes as had not adopted the idolatrous practices of theheathen returning with the exiles of Judah. In the Samaritan book ofJoshua, it is put down that many out of the tribes of Israel migrated tothe north of Palestine at the time when Zerubbabel and Ezra brought thetrain of Babylonian exiles to Jerusalem. 

In Talmudic literature we occasionally run across a slight reference tothe ten tribes, as, for instance, Mar Sutra's statement that theyjourneyed to Iberia, at that time synonymous with Spain, though therabbi probably had northern Africa in mind. Another passage relates thatthe Babylonian scholars decided that no one could tell whether he wasdescended from Reuben or from Simon, the presumption in their mindevidently being that the ten tribes had become amalgamated with Judahand Benjamin. If they are right, if from the time of Jeremiah to theSyrian domination, a slow process of assimilation was incorporating thescattered of the ten tribes into the returned remnant of Judah andBenjamin, then the ten lost tribes have no existence, and we are dealingwith a myth. But the question is still mooted. The prophets and therabbis continually dwell upon the hope of reunion. The Pesikta is thefirst authority to locate the exile home of the ten tribes on theSambation. A peculiarly interesting conversation on the future of theten tribes between two learned doctors of the Law, Rabbi Akiba and RabbiEliezer, has been preserved. Rabbi Eliezer maintains: "The Eternal hasremoved the ten tribes from their soil, and cast them forth into anotherland, as irrevocably as this day goes never to return. " Rabbi Akiba, theenthusiastic nationalist, thinks very differently: "No, day sinks, andpasses into night only to rise again in renewed brilliance. So the tentribes, lost in darkness, will reappear in refulgent light. "

It is not unlikely that Akiba's journeys, extending into Africa, andundertaken to bring about the restoration of the independence of Judæa, had as their subsidiary, unavowed purpose, the discovery of the ten losttribes. The "Dark Continent" played no unimportant rôle in Talmudicwritings, special interest attaching to their narratives of the Africanadventures of Alexander the Great. [66] On one occasion, it is said, thewise men of Africa appeared in a body before the king, and offered himgifts of gold. He refused them, being desirous only of becomingacquainted with the customs, statutes, and law, of the land. They, therefore, gave him an account of a lawsuit which was exciting muchattention at the time: A man had bought a field from his friend andneighbor, and while digging it up, had found a treasure which he refusedto keep, as he considered it the property of the original owner of thefield. The latter maintained that he had sold the land and all on andwithin it, and, therefore, had no claim upon the treasure. The doctorsof the law put an end to the dispute by the decision that the son of theone contestant was to take to wife the daughter of the other, thetreasure to be their marriage portion. Alexander marvelled greatly atthis decision. "With us, " he said, "the government would have had thelitigants killed, and would have confiscated the treasure. " Hereuponone of the wise men exclaimed: "Does the sun shine in your land? Haveyou dumb beasts where you live? If so, surely it is for them that Godsends down the rain, and lets the sun shine!"

In biblical literature, too, frequent mention is made of Africa. Thefirst explorer of the "Dark Continent" was the patriarch Abraham, whojourneyed from Ur of the Chaldees through Mesopotamia, across thedeserts and mountains of Asia, to Zoan, the metropolis of ancient Egypt. When Moses fled from before Pharaoh, he found refuge, according to aTalmudic legend, in the Soudan, where he became ruler of the land forforty years, and later on, Egypt was the asylum for the greater numberof Jewish rebels and fugitives. As early as the reign of King Solomon, ships freighted with silver sailed to Africa, and Jewish sailors in partmanned the Phoenician vessels despatched to the coasts of the Red Seato be loaded with the gold dust of Africa, whose usual name in Hebrewwas _Ophir_, meaning gold dust. In the Talmud Africa is generally spokenof as "the South, " owing to its lying south of Palestine. One of itsproverbs runs thus: "He who would be wise, must go to the South. " Thestory of Alexander the Great and the African lawyers is probably asample of the wisdom lauded. Nor were the doctors of the Talmud ignorantof the physical features of the country. A scoffer asked, "Why haveAfricans such broad feet. " "Because they live on marshy soil, and mustgo barefoot, " was the ready answer given by Hillel the Great. 

In the course of a discussion about the appearance of the cherubim, Akiba pointed out that in Africa a little child is called "cherub. "Thence he inferred that the faces of cherubim resembled those of littlechildren. On his travels in Africa, the same rabbi was appealed to by amighty negro king: "See, I am black, and my wife is black. How is itthat my children are white?" Akiba asked him whether there were picturesin his palace. "Yes, " answered the monarch, "my sleeping chamber isadorned with pictures of white men. " "That solves the puzzle, " saidAkiba. Evidently civilization had taken root in Africa more thaneighteen hundred years ago. 

To return to the lost tribes: No land on the globe has been consideredtoo small, none too distant, for their asylum. The first country tosuggest itself was the one closest to Palestine, Arabia, the bridgebetween Asia and Africa. In the first centuries of this era, two greatkingdoms, Yathrib and Chaibar, flourished there, and it is altogetherprobable that Jews were constantly emigrating thither. As early as thetime of Alexander the Great, thousands were transported to Arabia, particularly to Yemen, where entire tribes accepted the Jewish faith. Recent research has made us familiar with the kingdom of Tabba (500) andthe Himyarites. Their inscriptions and the royal monuments of the oldAfrican-Jewish population prove that Jewish immigrants must have beennumerous here, as in southern Arabia. When Mohammed unfurled the bannerof the Prophet, and began his march through the desert, his followerscounted not a few Jews. In similar numbers they spread to northernAfrica, where, towards the end of the first thousand years of theChristian era, they boasted large communities, and played a prominentrôle in Jewish literature, as is attested by the important contributionsto Jewish law, grammar, poetry, and medicine, by such men as IsaacIsraeli, Chananel, Jacob ben Nissim, Dunash ben Labrat, Yehuda Chayyug, and later, Isaac Alfassi. When this north-African Jewish literature wasat its zenith, interest in the whereabouts of the ten tribes revived, first mention of them being made in the last quarter of the ninthcentury. One day there appeared in the academy at Kairwan an adventurercalling himself Eldad, and representing himself to be a member of thetribe of Dan. Marvellous tales he told the wondering rabbis of his ownadventures, which read like a Jewish Odyssey, and of the independentgovernment established by Jews in Africa, of which he claimed to be asubject. Upon its borders, he reported, live the Levitical singers, thedescendants of Moses, who, in the days of Babylonish captivity, hungtheir harps upon the willows, refusing to sing the songs of Zion uponthe soil of the stranger, and willing to sacrifice limb and life ratherthan yield to the importunities of their oppressors. A cloud hadenveloped and raised them aloft, bearing them to the land of Chavila(Ethiopia). To protect them from their enemies, their refuge in a tricewas girdled by the famous Sambation, a stream, not of waters, but ofrapidly whirling stones and sand, tumultuously flowing during six days, and resting on the Sabbath, when the country was secured against foreigninvasion by a dense cloud of dust. With their neighbors, the sons ofMoses have intercourse only from the banks of the stream, which it isimpossible to pass. [67]

This clever fellow, who had travelled far and wide, and knew men andcustoms, gave an account also of a shipwreck which he had survived, andof his miraculous escape from cannibals, who devoured his companions, but, finding him too lean for their taste, threw him into a dungeon. Homer's Odyssey involuntarily suggests itself to the reader. In Spain welose trace of the singular adventurer, who must have produced no littleexcitement in the Jewish world of his day. 

Search for the ten tribes had now re-established itself as a subject ofperennial interest. In the hope of the fulfilment of the biblicalpromise: "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver frombetween his feet, until he comes to Shiloh, " even the most famous Jewishtraveller of the middle ages, Benjamin of Tudela, did not disdain tofollow up the "traces of salvation. " Nor has interest waned in ourgeneration. Whenever we hear of a Jewish community whose settlement inits home is tinged with mystery, we straightway seek to establish itsconnection with the ten lost tribes. They have been placed in Armenia, Syria, and Mesopotamia, where the Nestorian Christians, callingthemselves sons of Israel, live to the number of two hundred thousand, observing the dietary laws and the Sabbath, and offering up sacrifices. They have been sought in Afghanistan, India, and Western Asia, the landof the "Beni Israel, " with Jewish features, Jewish names, such asSolomon, David, and Benjamin, and Jewish laws, such as that of theLevirate marriage. One chain of hills in their country bears the name"Solomon's Mountains, " another "Amram Chain, " and the most warlike tribeis called Ephraim, while the chief tenet of their law is "eye for eye, tooth for tooth. " Search for the lost has been carried still further, tothe coast of China, to the settlements of Cochin and Malabar, wherewhite and black Jews write their law upon scrolls of red goatskin. 

Westward the quest has reached America: Manasseh ben Israel and MordecaiNoah, the latter of whom hoped to establish a Jewish commonwealth atArarat near Buffalo, in the beginning of this century, believed thatthey had discovered traces of the lost tribes among the Indians. TheSpaniards in Mexico identified them with the red men of Anahuac andYucatan, a theory suggested probably by the resemblance between theJewish and the Indian aquiline nose. These would-be ethnologistsobviously did not take into account the Mongolian descent of the Indiantribes and their pre-historic migration from Asia to America acrossBehring Strait. 

Europe has not escaped the imputation of being the refuge of the losttribes. When Alfonso XI. Expelled the Saracens from Toledo, the Jews ofthe city asked permission to remain on the plea that they were notdescendants of the murderers of Jesus, but of those ten tribes whomNebuchadnezzar had sent to Tarshish as colonists. The petition wasgranted, and their explanation filed among the royal archives at Toledo. 

The English have taken absorbing interest in the fate of the losttribes, maintaining by most elaborate arguments their identity with theinhabitants of Scandinavia and England. The English people have alwayshad a strong biblical bias. To this day they live in the Bible, and areflattered by the hypothesis that the Anglo-Saxons and kindred tribes, who crossed over to Britain under Hengist and Horsa in the fifthcentury, were direct descendants of Abraham, their very name_Sakkasuna_, that is, sons of Isaac, vouching for the truth of thetheory. The radical falseness of the etymology is patent. The gist oftheir argument is that the tribe of Dan settled near the source of theJordan, becoming the maritime member of the Israelitish confederacy, andcalling forth from Deborah the rebuke that the sons of Dan tarried inships when the land stood in need of defenders. And now comes the mostextravagant of the vagaries of the etymological reasoner: he suggests aconnection between Dan, Danube, Danaï, and Danes, and so establishes theEnglish nation's descent from the tribes of Israel. 

In the third decade of this century, when Shalmaneser's obelisk wasfound with the inscription "Tribute of Jehu, son of Omri, " Englishinvestigators, seeking to connect it with the Cimbric Chersonese inJutland, at once took it for "Yehu ibn Umry. " An Irish legend has itthat Princess Tephi came to Ireland from the East, and married KingHeremon, or Fergus, of Scotland. In her suite was the prophet OllamFolla, and his scribe Bereg. The princess was the daughter of Zedekiah, the prophet none other than Jeremiah, and the scribe, as a matter ofcourse, Baruch. The usefulness of this fine-spun analogy becomesapparent when we recall that Queen Victoria boasts descent from Fergusof Scotland, and so is furnished with a line of descent which wouldjustify pride if it rested on fact instead of fancy. On the other hand, imagine the dismay of Heinrich von Treitschke, Saxon _par excellence_, were it proved that he is a son of the ten lost tribes!

"Salvation is of the Jews!" is the motto of a considerable movementconnected with the lost tribes in England and America. More than thirtyweekly and monthly journals are discharging a volley of eloquence in thepropaganda of the new doctrine, and lecturers and societies keepinterest in it alive. An apostolic believer in the Israelitish descentof the British has recently turned up in the person of a bishop, and theidentity of the ancient and the modern people has been raised to thedignity of a dogma of the Christian Church by a sect which, according toa recent utterance of an Indianapolis preacher, holds the close adventof Judgment Day. Yet the ten lost tribes may be a myth!

One thing seems certain: If scattered remnants do exist here and there, they must be sought in Africa, in that part, moreover, most accessibleto travellers, that is to say, Abyssinia, situated in the centralportion of the great, high tableland of eastern Africa between the basinof the Nile and the shores of the Red and the Arabian Sea--a tremendous, rocky, fortress-like plateau, intersected closely with a network ofriver-beds, the Switzerland of Africa, as many please to call it. Alexander the Great colonized many thousands of Jews in Egypt on thesouthern and northern coasts of the Mediterranean, and in south-easternAfrica. Thence they penetrated into the interior of Abyssinia, wherethey founded a mighty kingdom extending to the river Sobat. Abyssinianlegends have another version of the history of this realm. It is saidthat the Queen of Sheba bore King Solomon a son, named Menelek, whom hesent to Abyssinia with a numerous retinue to found an independentkingdom. In point of fact, Judaism seems to have been the dominantreligion in Abyssinia until 340 of the Christian era, and the _Golah_ ofCush (the exiles in Abyssinia) is frequently referred to in mediævalHebrew literature. 

The Jewish kingdom flourished until a great revolution broke out in theninth century under Queen Judith (Sague), who conquered Axum, andreigned over Abyssinia for forty years. The Jewish ascendancy lastedthree hundred and fifty years. Rüppell, [68] a noted African explorer, gives the names of Jewish dynasties from the ninth to the thirteenthcentury. In the wars of the latter and the following century, the Jewslost their kingdom, keeping only the province of Semen, guarded byinaccessible mountains. Benjamin of Tudela describes it as "a land fullof mountains, upon whose rocky summits they have perched their towns andcastles, holding independent sway to the mortal terror of theirneighbors. " Combats, persecutions, and banishments lasted until the endof the eighteenth century. Anarchy reigned, overwhelming Gideon andJudith, the last of the Jewish dynasty, and proving equally fatal to theChristian empire, whose Negus Theodore likewise traced his descent fromSolomon. So, after a thousand years of mutual hostility, the two ancientnative dynasties, claiming descent from David and Solomon, perishedtogether, but the memory of the Jewish princes has not died out in theland. 

The Abyssinian Jews are called Falashas, the exiled. [69] They livesecluded in the province west of Takazzeh, and their number is estimatedby some travellers to be two hundred and fifty thousand, while my friendDr. Edward Glaser judges them to be only twenty-five thousand strong. Into the dreary wastes inhabited by these people, German and Englishmissionaries have found their way to spread among them the blessings ofChristianity. The purity of these blessings may be inferred from thenames of the missionaries: Flad, Schiller, Brandeis, Stern, andRosenbaum. 

Information about the misery of the Falashas penetrated to Europe, andinduced the _Alliance Israélite Universelle_ to despatch a Jewishmessenger to Abyssinia. Choice fell upon Joseph Halévy, professor ofOriental languages at Paris, one of the most thorough of Jewishscholars, than whom none could be better qualified for the mission. Itwas a memorable moment when Halévy, returned from his great journey toAbyssinia, addressed the meeting of the _Alliance_ on July 30, 1868, asfollows:[70] "The ancient land of Ethiopia has at last disclosed thesecret concerning the people of whom we hitherto knew naught but thename. In the midst of the most varied fortunes they clung to the Lawproclaimed on Sinai, and constant misery has not drained them of thevitality which enables nations to fulfil the best requirements of modernsociety. "

Adverse circumstances robbed Halévy of a great part of the materialgathered on his trip. What he rescued and published is enough to give usa more detailed and accurate account of the Falashas than we havehitherto possessed. He reports that they address their prayers to oneGod, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; that they feel pride inbelonging to the old, yet ever young tribe which has exercised dominantinfluence upon the fate of men; that love for the Holy Land fills theirhearts; and that the memory of Israel's glorious past is theirspiritual stay. One of the articles of their faith is the restoration ofJewish nationality. 

The Falashas speak two languages, that of the land, the Amharic, abranch of the ancient Geez, and the Agau, a not yet classified dialect. Their names are chiefly biblical. While in dress they are like theirneighbors, the widest difference prevails between their manners andcustoms and those of the other inhabitants of the land. In the midst ofa slothful, debauched people, they are distinguished for simplicity, diligence, and ambition. Their houses for the most part are situatednear running water; hence, their cleanly habits. At the head of eachvillage is a synagogue called _Mesgid_, whose Holy of holies may beentered only by the priest on the Day of Atonement, while the peoplepray in the court without. Next to the synagogue live the monks(_Nesirim_). The priests offer up sacrifices, as in ancient times, dailyexcept on the Day of Atonement, the most important being that for therepose of the dead. On the space surrounding the synagogue stand thehouses of the priests, who, in addition to their religious functions, fill the office of teachers of the young. The Falashas are wellacquainted with the Bible, but wholly ignorant of the Hebrew language. Their ritual has been published by Joseph Halévy, who has added a Hebrewtranslation, showing its almost perfect identity with the traditionalform of Jewish prayer. About their devotional exercises Halévy says:"From the holy precincts the prayers of the faithful rise aloft toheaven. From midnight on, we hear the clear, rhythmical, melancholyintonation of the precentor, the congregation responding in a monotonousrecitative. Praise of the Eternal, salvation of Israel, love of Zion, hope of a happy future for all mankind--these form the burden of theirprayers, calling forth sighs and tears, exclamations of hope and joy. Break of day still finds the worshippers assembled, and every eveningwithout fail, as the sun sinks to rest, their loud prayer (beginningwith _Abba! Abba!_ Lord! Lord!) twice wakes the echoes. "[71]

Their well kept houses are presided over by their women, diligent andmodest. Polygamy is unknown. There are agriculturists and artisans, representatives of every handicraft: smiths, tailors, potters, weavers, and builders. Commerce is not esteemed, trading with slaves being heldin special abhorrence. Their laws permit the keeping of a slave for onlysix years. If at the expiration of that period he embraces theirreligion, he is free. They are brave warriors, thousands of them havingfought in the army of Negus Theodore. 

It must be confessed that intellectually they are undeveloped. They havea sort of Midrash, which apparently has been handed down from generationto generation by word of mouth. The misfortunes they have endured havepredisposed them to mysticism, and magicians and soothsayers arenumerous and active among them. But they are eager for information. 

King Theodore protected them, until missionaries poisoned his mindagainst the Falashas. In 1868 he summoned a deputation of their elders, and commanded them to accept Christianity. Upon their refusal the kingordered his soldiers to fire on the rebels. Hundreds of heads wereraised, and the men, baring their breasts, cried out: "Strike, O ourKing, but ask us not to perjure ourselves. " Moved to admiration by theirintrepidity, the king loaded the deputies with presents, and dismissedthem in peace. 

The missionaries--Europe does not yet know how often the path of thesepious men is marked by tears and blood--must be held guilty of many ofthe bitter trials of the Falashas. In the sixties they succeeded inexciting Messianic expectations. Suddenly, from district to district, leapt the news that the Messiah was approaching to lead Israel back toPalestine. A touching letter addressed by the elders of the Falashas tothe representatives of the Jewish community at Jerusalem, whom it neverreached, was found by a traveller, and deserves to be quoted:

"Has the time not yet come when we must return to the Holy Land and HolyCity? For, we are poor and miserable. We have neither judges norprophets. If the time has arrived, we pray you send us the glad tidings. Great fear has fallen upon us that we may miss the opportunity toreturn. Many say that the time is here for us to be reunited with you inthe Holy City, to bring sacrifices in the Temple of our Holy Land. Forthe sake of the love we bear you, send us a message. Peace with you andall dwelling in the land given by the Lord to Moses on Sinai!"

Filled with the hope of redemption, large numbers of the Falashas, attheir head venerable old men holding aloft banners and singing pioussongs, at that time left their homes. Ignorant of the road to be taken, they set their faces eastward, hoping to reach the shores of the RedSea. The distance was greater than they could travel. At Axum they cameto a stop disabled, and after three years the last man had succumbed tomisery and privation. 

The distress of the Falashas is extreme, but they count it sweetalleviation if their sight is not troubled by missionaries. At a timewhen the attention of the civilized world is directed to Africa, European Jews should not be found wanting in care for their unfortunatebrethren in faith in the "Dark Continent. " Abundant reasons recommendthem to our loving-kindness. They are Jews--they would suffer a thousanddeaths rather than renounce the covenant sealed on Sinai. They areunfortunate; since the civil war, they have suffered severely under allmanner of persecution. Mysticism and ignorance prevail among them--thewhole community possesses a single copy of the Pentateuch. Finally, theyshow eager desire for spiritual regeneration. When Halévy took leave ofthem, a handsome youth threw himself at his feet, and said: "My lord, take me with you to the land of the Franks. Gladly will I undergo thehardships of the journey. I want neither silver nor gold--all I craveis knowledge!" Halévy brought the young Falasha to Paris, and he provedan indefatigable student, who acquired a wealth of knowledge before hisearly death. 

Despite the incubus of African barbarism, this little Jewish tribe onthe banks of the legend-famed Sabbath stream has survived with Jewishvitality unbroken and purity uncontaminated. With longing the Falashasare awaiting a future when they will be permitted to join the councilsof their Israelitish brethren in all quarters of the globe, and confess, in unison with them and all redeemed, enlightened men, that "the Lord isone, and His name one. "

The steadfastness of their faith imposes upon us the obligation to bringthem redemption. We must unbar for them not only Jerusalem, but thewhole world, that they may recognize, as we do, the eternal truthpreached by prophet and extolled by psalmist, that on the glad day whenthe unity of God is acknowledged, all the nations of the earth will forma single confederacy, banded together for love and peace. 

The open-eyed student of Jewish history, in which the Falashas form avery small chapter, cannot fail to note with reverence the power andsacredness of its genius. The race, the faith, the confession, all isunparalleled. Everything about it is wonderful--from Abraham at Ur ofthe Chaldees shattering his father's idols and proclaiming the unity ofGod, down to Moses teaching awed mankind the highest ethical lessonsfrom the midst of the thunders and flames of Sinai; to the heroes andseers, whose radiant visions are mankind's solace; to the sweet singersof Israel extolling the virtues of men in hymns and songs; to theMaccabean heroes struggling to throw off the Syrian yoke; to venerablerabbis proof against the siren notes of Hellenism; to the gracious bardsand profound thinkers of Andalusia. The genius of Jewish history isnever at rest. From the edge of the wilderness it sweeps on to the landsof civilization, where thousands of martyrs seal the confession of God'sunity with death on ruddy pyres; on through tears and blood, overnations, across thrones, until the sun of culture, risen to its zenith, sends its rays even into the dark Ghetto, where a drama enacts itself, melancholy, curious, whose last act is being played under our very eyes. Branch after branch is dropping from the timeworn, weatherbeaten trunk. The ground is thickly strewn with dry leaves. Vitality that resistedrain and storm seems to be blasted by sunshine. Yet we need not despair. The genius of Jewish history has the balsam of consolation to offer. Itbids us read in the old documents of Israel's spiritual struggles, andcalls to our attention particularly a parable in the Midrash, writtenwhen the need for its telling was as sore as to-day: A wagon loaded withglistening axes was driven through the woods. Plaintive cries arose fromthe trees: "Woe, woe, there is no escape for us, we are doomed to swiftdestruction. " A solitary oak towering high above the other trees stoodcalm, motionless. Many a spring had decked its twigs with tender, succulent green. At last it speaks; all are silent, and listenrespectfully: "Possess yourselves in peace. All the axes in the worldcannot harm you, if you do not provide them with handles. "

So every weapon shaped to the injury of the ancient tree of Judaism willrecoil ineffectual, unless her sons and adherents themselves furnish thehaft. There is consolation in the thought. Even in sad days it feeds thehope that the time will come, whereof the prophet spoke, when "all thychildren shall be disciples of the Lord; and great shall be the peace ofthy children. "

A JEWISH KING IN POLAND

There is a legend that a Jewish king once reigned in Poland. It neveroccurs to my mind without at the same time conjuring before me twofigures. The one is that charming creation of Ghetto fancy, old Malkoh"with the stout heart, " in Aaron Bernstein's _Mendel Gibbor_, whointroduces herself with the proud boast: _Wir sennen von königlicheinGeblüt_ ("We are of royal descent"). The other is a less ideal, lessattractive Jew, whom I overheard in the Casimir, the Jewish quarter atCracow, in altercation with another Jew. The matter seemed of vitalinterest to the disputants. The one affirmed, the other denied asvigorously, and finally silenced his opponent with the contemptuousargument: "Well, and if it comes about, it will last just as long asSaul Wahl's _Malchus_ (reign). "

Legend has always been the companion of history. For each age it createsa typical figure, in which are fixed, for the information of futuretimes, the fleeting, subtle emotions as well as the permanent effectsproduced by historical events, and this constitutes the value oflegendary lore in tracing the development and characteristics of apeople. At the same time its magic charms connect the links in the chainof generations. 

The legend about Saul Wahl to be known and appreciated must first betold as it exists, then traced through its successive stages, itshistorical kernel disentangled from the accretions of legend-makers, Saul, the man of flesh and blood discovered, and the ethical lessons ithas to teach derived. 

In 1734, more than a century after Saul's supposed reign, hisgreat-grandson, Rabbi Pinchas, resident successively in Leitnik, Boskowitz, Wallerstein, Schwarzburg, Marktbreit, and Anspach, relatedthe story of his ancestor: "Rabbi Samuel Judah's son was the great SaulWahl of blessed memory. All learned in such matters well know that hissurname _Wahl_ (choice) was given him, because he was chosen king inPoland by the unanimous vote of the noble electors of the land. I wastold by my father and teacher, of blessed memory, that the choice fellupon him in this wise: Saul Wahl was a favorite with Polish noblemen, and highly esteemed for his shrewdness and ability. The king of Polandhad died. Now it was customary for the great nobles of Poland toassemble for the election of a new king on a given day, on which it wasimperative that a valid decision be reached. When the day came, manyopinions were found to prevail among the electors, which could not bereconciled. Evening fell, and they realized the impossibility ofelecting a king on the legally appointed day. Loth to transgress theirown rule, the nobles agreed to make Saul Wahl king for the rest of thatday and the following night, and thus conform with the letter of thelaw. And so it was. Forthwith all paid him homage, crying out in theirown language: 'Long live our lord and king!' Saul, loaded with royalhonors, reigned that night. I heard from my father that they gave intohis keeping all the documents in the royal archives, to which every kingmay add what commands he lists, and Wahl inscribed many laws and decreesof import favorable to Jews. My father knew some of them; one was thatthe murderer of a Jew, like the murderer of a nobleman, was to sufferthe death penalty. Life was to be taken for life, and no ransomallowed--a law which, in Poland, had applied only to the case ofChristians of the nobility. The next day the electors came to anagreement, and chose a ruler for Poland. --That this matter may beremembered, I will not fail to set forth the reasons why Saul Wahlenjoyed such respect with the noblemen of Poland, which is the moreremarkable as his father, Rabbi Samuel Judah, was rabbi first at Paduaand then at Venice, and so lived in Italy. My father told me how it cameabout. In his youth, during his father's lifetime, Saul Wahl conceived adesire to travel in foreign parts. He left his paternal home in Padua, and journeying from town to town, from land to land, he at last reachedBrzesc in Lithuania. There he married the daughter of David Drucker, andhis pittance being small, he led but a wretched life. 

It happened at this time that the famous, wealthy prince, Radziwill, thefavorite of the king, undertook a great journey to see divers lands, asis the custom of noblemen. They travel far and wide to becomeacquainted with different fashions and governments. So this princejourneyed in great state from land to land, until his purse was empty. He knew not what to do, for he would not discover his plight to thenobles of the land in which he happened to be; indeed, he did not careto let them know who he was. Now, he chanced to be in Padua, and heresolved to unbosom himself to the rabbi, tell him that he was a greatnoble of the Polish land, and borrow somewhat to relieve his pressingneed. Such is the manner of Polish noblemen. They permit shrewd andsensible Jews to become intimate with them that they may borrow fromthem, rabbis being held in particularly high esteem and favor by theprinces and lords of Poland. So it came about that the aforesaid PrinceRadziwill sought out Rabbi Samuel Judah, and revealed his identity, atthe same time discovering to him his urgent need of money. The rabbilent him the sum asked for, and the prince said, 'How can I recompenseyou, returning good for good?' The rabbi answered, 'First I beg that youdeal kindly with the Jews under your power, and then that you do thegood you would show me to my son Saul, who lives in Brzesc. ' The princetook down the name and place of abode of the rabbi's son, and havingarrived at his home, sent for him. He appeared before the prince, whofound him so wise and clever that he in every possible way attached theJew to his own person, gave him many proofs of his favor, sounded hispraises in the ears of all the nobles, and raised him to a highposition. He was so great a favorite with all the lords that on the daywhen a king was to be elected, and the peers could not agree, ratherthan have the day pass without the appointment of a ruler, theyunanimously resolved to invest Saul with royal power, calling him SaulWahl to indicate that he had been _chosen_ king. --All this my fathertold me, and such new matter as I gathered from another source, I willnot fail to set down in another chapter. "--

"This furthermore I heard from my pious father, when, in 1734, he laysick in Fürth, where there are many physicians. I went from Marktbreitto Fürth, and stayed with him for three weeks. When I was alone withhim, he dictated his will to me, and then said in a low voice: 'This Iwill tell you that you may know what happened to our ancestor Saul Wahl:After the nobles had elected a king for Poland, and our ancestor hadbecome great in the eyes of the Jews, he unfortunately grew haughty. Hehad a beautiful daughter, Händele, famed throughout Poland for her witas well as her beauty. Many sought her in marriage, and among hersuitors was a young Talmudist, the son of one of the most celebratedrabbis. (My father did not mention the name, either because he did notknow, or because he did not wish to say it, or mayhap he had forgottenit. ) The great rabbi himself came to Brzesc with his learned son to urgethe suit. They both lodged with the chief elder of the congregation. But the pride of our ancestor was overweening. In his heart heconsidered himself the greatest, and his daughter the best, in the land, and he said that his daughter must marry one more exalted than thissuitor. Thus he showed his scorn for a sage revered in Israel and forhis son, and these two were sore offended at the discourtesy. The Jewishcommunity had long been murmuring against our ancestor Saul Wahl, and itwas resolved to make amends for his unkindness. One of the mostrespected men in the town gave his daughter to the young Talmudist forwife, and from that day our ancestor had enemies among his people, whoconstantly sought to do him harm. It happened at that time that the wifeof the king whom the nobles had chosen died, and several Jews of Brzesc, in favor with the powerful of the land, in order to administerpunishment to Saul Wahl, went about among the nobles praising hisdaughter for her exceeding beauty and cleverness, and calling her theworthiest to wear the queenly crown. One of the princes being kindlydisposed to Saul Wahl betrayed their evil plot, and it wasfrustrated. '"[72]

Rabbi Pinchas' ingenuous narrative, charming in its simple directness, closes wistfully: "He who has not seen that whole generation, Saul Wahlamid his sons, sons-in-law, and grandsons, has failed to see the unionof the Law with mundane glory, of wealth with honor and princelyrectitude. May the Lord God bless us by permitting us to rejoice thus inour children and children's children!"

Other rabbis of that time have left us versions of the Saul Wahl legend. They report that he founded a _Beth ha-Midrash_ (college for Jewishstudies) and a little synagogue, leaving them, together with numerousbequests, to the community in which he had lived, with the conditionthat the presidency of the college be made hereditary in his family. Some add that they had seen in Brzesc a gold chain belonging to him, hiscoat of arms emblazoned with the lion of Judah, and a stone tablet onwhich an account of his meritorious deeds was graven. Chain, escutcheon, and stone have disappeared, and been forgotten, the legend alonesurvives. 

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Now, what has history to say?

Unquestionably, an historical kernel lies hidden in the legend. Neitherthe Polish chronicles of those days nor Jewish works mention a Jewishking of Poland; but from certain occurrences, hints can be gleanedsufficient to enable us to establish the underlying truth. When StephenBáthori died, Poland was hard pressed. On all sides arose pretenders tothe throne. The most powerful aspirant was Archduke Maximilian ofAustria, who depended on his gold and Poland's well-known sympathy forAustria to gain him the throne. Next came the Duke of Ferrara backed bya great army and the favor of the Czar, and then, headed by thecrown-prince of Sweden, a crowd of less powerful claimants, so motleythat a Polish nobleman justly exclaimed: "If you think any one will doto wear Poland's crown upon his pate, I'll set up my coachman as king!"Great Poland espoused the cause of Sweden, Little Poland supportedAustria, and the Lithuanians furthered the wishes of the Czar. Inreality, however, the election of the king was the occasion for bringingto a crisis the conflict between the two dominant families of Zamoiskiand Zborowski. 

The election was to take place on August 18, 1587. The electors, armedto the teeth, appeared on the place designated for the election, afortified camp on the Vistula, on the other side of which stood thedeputies of the claimants. Night was approaching, and the possibility ofreconciling the parties seemed as remote as ever. Christopher Radziwill, the "castellan" of the realm, endeavoring to make peace between thefactions, stealthily crept from camp to camp, but evening deepened intonight, and still the famous election cry, "_Zgoda!_" (Agreed!), was notheard. 

According to the legend, this is the night of Saul Wahl's brief royalty. It is said that he was an agent employed by Prince Radziwill, and whenthe electors could not be induced to come to an agreement, it occurredto the prince to propose Saul as a compromise-king. With shouts of "Longlive King Saul!" the proposal was greeted by both factions, and this isthe nucleus of the legend, which with remarkable tenacity hasperpetuated itself down to our generation. For the historical truth ofthe episode we have three witnesses. The chief is Prince NicholasChristopher of Radziwill, duke of Olyka and Nieswiesz, the son of thefounder of this still flourishing line of princes. His father had leftthe Catholic church, and joined the Protestants, but he himself returnedto Catholicism, and won fame by his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, describedin both Polish and Latin in the work _Peregrinatio Hierosolymitana_. Besides, he offered 5000 ducats for the purchase of extant copies of theProtestant "Radziwill Bible, " published by his father, intending to havethem destroyed. On his return journey from the Holy Land he was attackedat Pescara by robbers, and at Ancona on a Palm Sunday, according to hisown account, he found himself destitute of means. He applied to thepapal governor, but his story met with incredulity. Then he appealed toa Jewish merchant, offering him, as a pawn, a gold box made of a pieceof the holy cross obtained in Palestine, encircled with diamonds, andbearing on its top the _Agnus dei_. The Jew advanced one hundred crowns, which sufficed exactly to pay his lodging and attendants. Needy asbefore, he again turned to the Jew, who gave him another hundred crowns, this time without exacting a pledge, a glance at his papal passporthaving convinced him of the prince's identity. [73]

This is Radziwill's account in his itinerary. As far as it goes, itbears striking similarity to the narrative of Rabbi Pinchas of Anspach, and leads to the certain conclusion that the legend rests upon anhistorical substratum. A critic has justly remarked that the most vividfancy could not, one hundred and thirty-one years after theiroccurrence, invent, in Anspach, the tale of a Polish magnate'sadventures in Italy. Again, it is highly improbable that Saul Wahl'sgreat-grandson read Prince Radziwill's Latin book, detailing hisexperiences to his contemporaries. 

There are other witnesses to plead for the essential truth of ourlegend. The rabbis mentioned before have given accounts of Saul'sposition, of his power, and the splendor of his life. Negative signs, itis true, exist, arguing against the historical value of the legend. Polish history has not a word to say about the ephemeral king. In fact, there was no day fixed for the session of the electoral diet. Moreover, critics might adduce against the probability of its correctness thehumble station of the Jews, and the low esteem in which the Radziwillswere then held by the Polish nobility. But it is questionable whetherthese arguments are sufficiently convincing to strip the Saul Wahllegend of all semblance of truth. Polish historians are hardly fair inignoring the story. Though it turn out to have been a wild prank, it hassome historical justification. Such practical jokes are not unusual inPolish history. Readers of that history will recall the _RespublikaBabinska_, that society of practical jokers which drew up royalcharters, and issued patents of nobility. A Polish nobleman had foundedthe society in the sixteenth century, its membership being open only tothose distinguished as wits. It perpetrated the oddest political jokes, appointing spendthrifts as overseers of estates, and the mostquarrelsome as justices of the peace. With such proclivities, Polishfactions, at loggerheads with each other, can easily be imagined unitingto crown a Jew, the most harmless available substitute for a real king. 

Our last and strongest witness--one compelling the respectful attentionof the severest court and the most incisive attorney general--is theRussian professor Berschadzky, the author of an invaluable work on thehistory of the Jews in Lithuania. He vouches, not indeed for theauthenticity of the events related by Rabbi Pinchas, but for the realityof Saul Wahl himself. From out of the Russian archives he has beenresurrected by Professor Berschadzky, the first to establish that Saulwas a man of flesh and blood. [74] He reproduces documents ofincontestable authority, which report that Stephen Báthori, in the year1578, the third of his reign, awarded the salt monopoly for the whole ofPoland to Saul Juditsch, that is, Saul the Jew. Later, upon the paymentof a high security, the same Saul the Jew became farmer of the imposts. In 1580, his name, together with the names of the heads of the Jewishcommunity of Brzesc, figures in a lawsuit instituted to establish theclaim of the Jews upon the fourth part of all municipal revenues. Herests the claim on a statute of Grandduke Withold, and the verdict wasfavorable to his side. This was the time of the election of Báthori'ssuccessor, Sigismund III. , and after his accession to the throne, SaulJuditsch again appears on the scene. On February 11, 1588, the kingissued the following notice: "Some of our councillors have recommendedto our attention the punctilious business management of Saul Juditsch, of the town of Brzesc, who, on many occasions during the reigns of ourpredecessors, served the crown by his wide experience in matterspertaining to duties, taxes, and divers revenues, and advanced thefinancial prosperity of the realm by his conscientious efforts. " Saulwas now entrusted, for a period of ten years, with the collection oftaxes on bridges, flour, and brandies, paying 150, 000 gold florins forthe privilege. A year later he was honored with the title _slugakrólewski_, "royal official, " a high rank in the Poland of the day, ascan be learned from the royal decree conferring it: "We, King of Poland, having convinced ourself of the rare zeal and distinguished ability ofSaul Juditsch, do herewith grant him a place among our royal officials, and that he may be assured of our favor for him we exempt him and hislands for the rest of his life from subordination to the jurisdiction ofany 'castellan, ' or any municipal court, or of any court in our land, ofwhatever kind or rank it may be; so that if he be summoned before thecourt of any judge or district, in any matter whatsoever, be it great orsmall, criminal or civil, he is not obliged to appear and defendhimself. His goods may not be distrained, his estates not used assecurity, and he himself can neither be arrested, nor kept a prisoner. His refusal to appear before a judge or to give bail shall in no wise bepunishable; he is amenable to no law covering such cases. If a charge bebrought against him, his accusers, be they our subjects or aliens, ofany rank or calling whatsoever, must appeal to ourself, the king, andSaul Juditsch shall be in honor bound to appear before us and defendhimself. "

This royal patent was communicated to all the princes, lords, _voivodes_, marshals, "castellans, " starosts, and lower officials, intown and country, and to the governors and courts of Poland. SaulJuditsch's name continues to appear in the state documents. In 1593, hepleads for the Jews of Brzesc, who desire to have their ownjurisdiction. In consequence of his intercession, Sigismund III. Forbidsthe _voivodes_ (mayors) and their proxies to interfere in the quarrelsof the Jews, of whatever kind they may be. The last mention of SaulJuditsch's name occurs in the records of 1596, when, in conjunction withhis Christian townsmen, he pleads for the renewal of an old franchise, granted by Grandduke Withold, exempting imported goods from duty. 

Saul Wahl probably lived to the age of eighty, dying in the year 1622. The research of the historian has established his existence beyond aperadventure. He has proved that there was an individual by the name ofSaul Wahl, and that is a noteworthy fact in the history of Poland and inthat of the Jews in the middle ages. 

* * *

After history, criticism has a word to say. A legend, as a rule, restson analogy, on remarkable deeds, on notable events, on extraordinaryhistorical phenomena. In the case of the legend under consideration, allthese originating causes are combined. Since the time of Sigismund I. , the position of the Jews in Lithuania and Poland had been favorable. Itis regarded as their golden period in Poland. In general, Polish Jewshad always been more favorably situated than their brethren in faith inother countries. At the very beginning of Polish history, a legend, similar to that attached to Saul Wahl's name, sprang up. After the deathof Popiel, an assembly met at Kruszwica to fill the vacant throne. Noagreement could be reached, and the resolution was adopted to hail asking the first person to enter the town the next morning. The guardstationed at the gate accordingly brought before the assembly the poorJew Abraham, with the surname Powdermaker (_Prochownik_), which he hadreceived from his business, the importing of powder. He was welcomedwith loud rejoicing, and appointed king. But he refused the crown, andpressed to accept it, finally asked for a night's delay to consider theproposal. Two days and two nights passed, still the Jew did not comeforth from his room. The Poles were very much excited, and a peasant, Piast by name, raising his voice, cried out: "No, no, this will not do!The land cannot be without a head, and as Abraham does not come out, Iwill bring him out. " Swinging his axe, he rushed into the house, andled the trembling Jew before the crowd. With ready wit, Abraham said, "Poles, here you see the peasant Piast, he is the one to be your king. He is sensible, for he recognized that a land may not be without a king. Besides, he is courageous; he disregarded my command not to enter myhouse. Crown him, and you will have reason to be grateful to God and Hisservant Abraham!" So Piast was proclaimed king, and he became theancestor of a great dynasty. 

It is difficult to discover how much of truth is contained in thislegend of the tenth century. That it in some remote way rests uponhistorical facts is attested by the existence of Polish coins bearingthe inscriptions: "Abraham _Dux_" and "_Zevach_ Abraham" ("Abraham thePrince" and "Abraham's Sacrifice"). Casimir the Great, whose _liaison_with the Jewess Esterka has been shown by modern historians to be a purefabrication, confirmed the charter of liberties (_privilegiumlibertatis_) held by the Jews of Poland from early times, and underSigismund I. They prospered, materially and intellectually, as neverbefore. Learning flourished among them, especially the study of theTalmud being promoted by three great men, Solomon Shachna, SolomonLuria, and Moses Isserles. 

Henry of Anjou, the first king elected by the Diet (1573), owed hiselection to Solomon Ashkenazi, a Jewish physician and diplomat, whoventured to remind the king of his services: "To me more than to any oneelse does your Majesty owe your election. Whatever was done here at thePorte, I did, although, I believe, M. D'Acqs takes all credit untohimself. " This same diplomat, together with the Jewish prince JosephNasi of Naxos, was chiefly instrumental in bringing about the electionof Stephen Báthori. Simon Günsburg, the head of the Jewish community ofPosen, had a voice in the king's council, and Bona Sforza, the Italianprincess on the Polish throne, was in the habit of consulting withclever Jews. The papal legate Commendoni speaks in a vexed tone, yetadmiringly, of the brilliant position of Polish Jews, of their extensivecattle-breeding and agricultural interests, of their superiority toChristians as artisans, of their commercial enterprise, leading them asfar as Dantzic in the north and Constantinople in the south, and oftheir possession of that sovereign means which overcomes ruler, starost, and legate alike. [75]

These are the circumstances to be borne in mind in examining theauthenticity of the legend about the king of a night. As early as thebeginning of his century, recent historians inform us, three Jews, Abraham, Michael, and Isaac Josefowicz, rose to high positions inLithuania. Abraham was made chief rabbi of Lithuania, his residencebeing fixed at Ostrog; Isaac became starost of the cities of Smolenskand Minsk (1506), and four years later, he was invested with thegovernorship of Lithuania. He always kept up his connection with hisbrothers, protected his co-religionists, and appointed Michael chiefelder of the Lithuanian Jews. On taking the oath of allegiance to Albertof Prussia, he was raised to the rank of a nobleman. A Jew of thesixteenth century a nobleman! Surely, this fact is sufficientlystartling to serve as the background of a legend. We have everycircumstance necessary: An analogous legend in the early history ofPoland, the favored condition of the Jews, the well-attested reality ofSaul Juditsch, and an extraordinary event, the ennobling of a Jew. SaulWahl probably did not reign--not even for a single night--but hecertainly was attached to the person of the king, and later, ignorant ofgrades of officials, the Jews were prone to magnify his position. Indeed, the abject misery of their condition in the seventeenth centuryseems better calculated to explain the legend than their prosperity inthe fifteenth and the sixteenth century. Bogdan Chmielnicki's campaignagainst the rebellious Cossacks wrought havoc among the Jews. From thesouthern part of the Ukraine to Lemberg, the road was strewn with thecorpses of a hundred thousand Jews. The sad memory of a happy past isthe fertile soil in which legends thrive. It is altogether likely thatat this time of degradation the memory of Saul Wahl, redeemer and hero, was first celebrated, and the report of his coat of arms emblazoned witha lion clutching a scroll of the Law, and crowning an eagle, of hisgolden chain, of his privileges, and all his memorials, spread fromhouse to house. 

Parallel cases of legend-construction readily suggest themselves. Inour own time, in the glare of nineteenth century civilization, legendsoriginate in the same way. Here is a case in point: In 1875, theAnthropological Society of Western Prussia instituted a series ofinvestigations, in the course of which the complexion and the color ofthe hair and eyes of the children at the public schools were to benoted, in order to determine the prevalence of certain racial traits. The most extravagant rumors circulated in the districts of Dantzic, Thorn, Kulm, all the way to Posen. Parents, seized by unreasoningterror, sent their children, in great numbers, to Russia. One rumor saidthat the king of Prussia had lost one thousand blonde children to thesultan over a game of cards; another, that the Russian government hadsold sixty thousand pretty girls to an Arab prince, and to save themfrom the sad fate conjectured to be in store for them, all the prettygirls at Dubna were straightway married off. --Similarly, primitive man, to satisfy his intellectual cravings, explained the phenomena of theheavens, the earth, and the waters by legends and myths, the germs ofpolytheistic nature religions. In our case, the tissue of facts isdifferent, the process the same. 

But legends express the idealism of the masses; they are the highestmanifestations of spiritual life. The thinker's flights beyond theconfines of reality, the inventor's gift to join old materials in newcombinations, the artist's creative impulse, the poet's inspiration, theseer's prophetic vision--every emanation from man's ideal nature clothesitself with sinews, flesh, and skin, and lives in a people's legends, the repositories of its art, poetry, science, and ethics. 

Legends moreover are characteristic of a people's culture. As a childdelights in iridescent soap-bubbles, so a nation revels inreminiscences. Though poetry lend words, painting her tints, architecture a rule, sculpture a chisel, music her tones, the legenditself is dead, and only a thorough understanding of national traitsenables one to recognize its ethical bearings. From this point of view, the legend of the Polish king of a night is an important historicalargument, testifying to the satisfactory condition of the Jews of Polandin the fifteenth and the sixteenth century. The simile that comparesnations, on the eve of a great revolution, to a seething crater, is truedespite its triteness, and if to any nation, is applicable to the Polandof before and after that momentous session of the Diet. Egotism, greed, ambition, vindictiveness, and envy added fuel to fire, and hasteneddestruction. Jealousy had planted discord between two families, dividingthe state into hostile, embittered factions. Morality was undermined, law trodden under foot, duty neglected, justice violated, the promptingsof good sense disregarded. So it came about that the land was flooded byruin as by a mighty stream, which, a tiny spring at first, gathersstrength and volume from its tributaries, and overflowing its bounds, rushes over blooming meadows, fields, and pastures, drawing into itsdestructive depths the peasant's every joy and hope. That is the soilfrom which a legend like ours sprouts and grows. 

This legend distinctly conveys an ethical lesson. The persecutions ofthe Jews, their ceaseless wanderings from town to town, from country tocountry, from continent to continent, have lasted two thousand years, and how many dropped by the wayside! Yet they never parted with thetriple crown placed upon their heads by an ancient sage: the crown ofroyalty, the crown of the Law, and the crown of a good name. Learningand fair fame were indisputably theirs: therefore, the first, the royalcrown, never seemed more resplendent than when worn in exile. The gloryof a Jewish king of the exile seemed to herald the realization of theMessianic ideal. So it happens that many a family in Poland, England, and Germany, still cherishes the memory of Rabbi Saul the king, and that"Malkohs" everywhere still boast of royal ancestry. Rabbis, learned inthe Law, were his descendants, and men of secular fame, Gabriel Riesseramong them, proudly mention their connection, however distant, with SaulWahl. The memory of his deeds perpetuates itself in respectable Jewishhomes, where grandams, on quiet Sabbath afternoons, tell of them, asthey show in confirmation the seal on coins to an awe-struck progeny. 

Three crowns Israel bore upon his head. If the crown of royalty islegendary, then the more emphatically have the other two an historicaland ethical value. The crown of royalty has slipped from us, but thecrown of a good name and especially the crown of the Law are ours tokeep and bequeath to our children and our children's children unto thelatest generation. 

JEWISH SOCIETY IN THE TIME OF MENDELSSOHN

On an October day in 1743, in the third year of the reign of Frederickthe Great, a delicate lad of about fourteen begged admittance at theRosenthal gate of Berlin, the only gate by which non-resident Jews wereallowed to enter the capital. To the clerk's question about his businessin the city, he briefly replied: "Study" (_Lernen_). The boy was MosesMendelssohn, and he entered the city poor and friendless, knowing in allBerlin but one person, his former teacher Rabbi David Fränkel. Abouttwenty years later, the Royal Academy of Sciences awarded him the firstprize for his essay on the question: "Are metaphysical truthssusceptible of mathematical demonstration?" After another period oftwenty years, Mendelssohn was dead, and his memory was celebrated asthat of a "sage like Socrates, the greatest philosophers of the dayexclaiming, 'There is but one Mendelssohn!'"--

The Jewish Renaissance of a little more than a century ago presents thewhole historic course of Judaism. Never had the condition of the Jewsbeen more abject than at the time of Mendelssohn's appearance on thescene. It must be remembered that for Jews the middle ages lasted threehundred years after all other nations had begun to enjoy the blessingsof the modern era. Veritable slaves, degenerate in language and habits, purchasing the right to live by a tax (_Leibzoll_), in many cities stillwearing a yellow badge, timid, embittered, pale, eloquently silent, theJews herded in their Ghetto with its single Jew-gate--they, thedescendants of the Maccabees, the brethren in faith of proud Spanishgrandees, of Andalusian poets and philosophers. The congregations werepoor; immigrant Poles filled the offices of rabbis and teachers, andoccupied themselves solely with the discussion of recondite problems. The evil nonsense of the Kabbalists was actively propagated by theSabbatians, and on the other hand the mystical _Chassidim_ werebeginning to perform their witches' dance. The language commonly usedwas the _Judendeutsch_ (the Jewish German jargon) which, stripped of itsformer literary dignity, was not much better than thieves' slang. Ofsuch pitiful elements the life of the Jews was made up during the firsthalf of the eighteenth century. 

Suddenly there burst upon them the great, overwhelming Renaissance! Itseemed as though Ezekiel's vision were about to be fulfilled:[76] "Thehand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of theLord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones. . . There were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were verydry. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And Ianswered, O Lord God, thou knowest. Again he said unto me, Prophesy uponthese bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of theLord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will causebreath to enter into you, and ye shall live . . . And ye shall know that Iam the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone . . . The sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and theskin covered them above: but there was no breath in them. Then said heunto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to thewind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, andbreathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as hecommanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stoodup upon their feet, an exceeding great army. Then he said unto me, Sonof man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. "

Is this not a description of Israel's history in modern days? OldJudaism, seeing the marvels of the Renaissance, might well exclaim: "Whohath begotten me these?" and many a pious mind must have reverted to theancient words of consolation: "I remember unto thee the kindness of thyyouth, the love of thy espousals, thy going after me in the wilderness, through a land that is not sown. "

In the face of so radical a transformation, Herder, poet and thinker, reached the natural conclusion that "such occurrences, such a historywith all its concomitant and dependent circumstances, in brief, such anation cannot be a lying invention. Its development is the greatest poemof all times, and still unfinished, will probably continue until everypossibility hidden in the soul life of humanity shall have obtainedexpression. "[77]

An unparalleled revival had begun; and in Germany, in which it madeitself felt as an effect of the French Revolution, it is coupled firstand foremost with the name of Moses Mendelssohn. 

Society as conceived in these modern days is based upon men's relationsto their families, their disciples, and their friends. They are thethree elements that determine a man's usefulness as a social factor. Ourfirst interest, then, is to know Mendelssohn in his family. [78] Manyyears were destined to elapse, after his coming to Berlin, before he wasto win a position of dignity. When, a single ducat in his pocket, hefirst reached Berlin, the reader remembers, he was a pale-faced, fragileboy. A contemporary of his relates: "In 1746 I came to Berlin, apenniless little chap of fourteen, and in the Jewish school I met MosesMendelssohn. He grew fond of me, taught me reading and writing, andoften shared his scanty meals with me. I tried to show my gratitude bydoing him any small service in my power. Once he told me to fetch him aGerman book from some place or other. Returning with the book in hand, Iwas met by one of the trustees of the Jewish poor fund. He accosted me, not very gently, with, 'What have you there? I venture to say a Germanbook!' Snatching it from me, and dragging me to the magistrate's, hegave orders to expel me from the city. Mendelssohn, learning my fate, did everything possible to bring about my return; but his efforts wereof no avail. " It is interesting to know that it was the grandfather ofHerr von Bleichröder who had to submit to so relentless a fate. 

German language and German writing Mendelssohn acquired by his unaidedefforts. With the desultory assistance of a Dr. Kisch, a Jewishphysician, he learnt Latin from a book picked up at a second-hand bookstall. General culture was at that time an unknown quantity in thepossibilities of Berlin Jewish life. The schoolmasters, who were notpermitted to stay in the city more than three years, were for the mostpart Poles. One Pole, Israel Moses, a fine thinker and mathematician, banished from his native town, Samosz, on account of his devotion tosecular studies, lived with Aaron Gumpertz, the only one of the famousfamily of court-Jews who had elected a better lot. From the latter, Mendelssohn imbibed a taste for the sciences, and to him he owed somedirection in his studies; while in mathematics he was instructed byIsrael Samosz, at the time when the latter, busily engaged with hisgreat commentary on Yehuda Halevi's _Al-Chazari_, was living at thehouse of the Itzig family, on the _Burgstrasse_, on the very spot wherethe talented architect Hitzig, the grandson of Mendelssohn'scontemporary, built the magnificent Exchange. To enable himself to buybooks, Mendelssohn had to deny himself food. As soon as he had hoarded afew _groschen_, he stealthily slunk to a dealer in second-hand books. Inthis way he managed to possess himself of a Latin grammar and a wretchedlexicon. Difficulties did not exist for him; they vanished before hisindustry and perseverance. In a short time he knew far more thanGumpertz himself, who has become famous through his entreaty to MagisterGottsched at Leipsic, whilom absolute monarch in German literature: "Iwould most respectfully supplicate that it may please your worshipfulHighness to permit me to repair to Leipsic to pasture on the meadows oflearning under your Excellency's protecting wing. "

After seven years of struggle and privation, Moses Mendelssohn becametutor at the house of Isaac Bernhard, a silk manufacturer, and now beganbetter times. In spite of faithful performance of duties, he foundleisure to acquire a considerable stock of learning. He began tofrequent social gatherings, his friend Dr. Gumpertz introducing him topeople of culture, among others to some philosophers, members of theBerlin Academy. What smoothed the way for him more than his sterlingcharacter and his fine intellect was his good chess-playing. The Jewshave always been celebrated as chess-players, and since the twelfthcentury a literature in Hebrew prose and verse has grown up about thegame. Mendelssohn in this respect, too, was the heir of the peculiargifts of his race. 

In a little room two flights up in a house next to the Nicolaichurchyard lived one of the acquaintances made by Mendelssohn throughDr. Gumpertz, a young newspaper writer--Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Lessing was at once strongly attracted by the young man's keen, untrammelled mind. He foresaw that Mendelssohn would "become an honor tohis nation, provided his fellow-believers permit him to reach hisintellectual maturity. His honesty and his philosophic bent make me seein him a second Spinoza, equal to the first in all but his errors. "[79]Through Lessing, Mendelssohn formed the acquaintance of Nicolai, and asthey were close neighbors, their friendship developed into intimacy. Nicolai induced him to take up the study of Greek, and old Rector Dammtaught him. 

At this time (1755), the first coffee-house for the use of anassociation of about one hundred members, chiefly philosophers, mathematicians, physicians, and booksellers, was opened in Berlin. Mendelssohn, too, was admitted, making his true entrance into society, and forming many attachments. One evening it was proposed at the clubthat each of the members describe his own defects in verse; whereuponMendelssohn, who stuttered and was slightly hunchbacked, wrote:

 "Great you call Demosthenes, Stutt'ring orator of Greece; Hunchbacked Æsop you deem wise;-- In your circle, I surmise, I am doubly wise and great. What in each was separate You in me united find, -- Hump and heavy tongue combined. "

Meanwhile his worldly affairs prospered; he had become bookkeeper inBernhard's business. His biographer Kayserling tells us that at thisperiod he was in a fair way to develop into "a true _bel esprit_"; hetook lessons on the piano, went to the theatre and to concerts, andwrote poems. During the winter he was at his desk at the office fromeight in the morning until nine in the evening. In the summer of 1756, his work was lightened; after two in the afternoon he was his ownmaster. The following year finds him comfortably established in a houseof his own with a garden, in which he could be found every evening atsix o'clock, Lessing and Nicolai often joining him. Besides, he had laidby a little sum, which enabled him to help his friends, especiallyLessing, out of financial embarrassments. Business cares did, indeed, bear heavily upon him, and his complaints are truly touching: "Like abeast of burden laden down, I crawl through life, self-loveunfortunately whispering into my ear that nature had perhaps mapped outa poet's career for me. But what can we do, my friends? Let us pity oneanother, and be content. So long as love for science is not stifledwithin us, we may hope on. " Surely, his love for learning neverdiminished. On the contrary, his zeal for philosophic studies grew, andwith it his reputation in the learned world of Berlin. The Jewishthinker finally attracted the notice of Frederick the Great, whose poemshe had had the temerity to criticise adversely in the "Letters onLiterature" (_Litteraturbriefe_). He says in that famous criticism:[80]"What a loss it has been for our mother-tongue that this prince hasgiven more time and effort to the French language. We should otherwisepossess a treasure which would arouse the envy of our neighbors. " Acertain Herr von Justi, who had also incurred the unfavorable notice ofthe _Litteraturbriefe_, used this review to revenge himself onMendelssohn. He wrote to the Prussian state-councillor: "A miserablepublication appears in Berlin, letters on recent literature, in which aJew, criticising court-preacher Cramer, uses irreverent language inreference to Christianity, and in a bold review of _Poésies diverses_, fails to pay the proper respect to his Majesty's sacred person. " Soon aninterdict was issued against the _Litteraturbriefe_, and Mendelssohn wassummoned to appear before the attorney general Von Uhden. Nicolai hasgiven us an account of the interview between the high and mighty officerof the state and the poor Jewish philosopher:

Attorney General: "Look here! How can you venture to write againstChristians?"

Mendelssohn: "When I bowl with Christians, I throw down all the pinswhenever I can. "

Attorney General: "Do you dare mock at me? Do you know to whom you arespeaking?"

Mendelssohn: "Oh yes. I am in the presence of privy councillor andattorney general Von Uhden, a just man. "

Attorney General: "I ask again: What right have you to write against aChristian, a court-preacher at that?"

Mendelssohn: "And I must repeat, truly without mockery, that when I playat nine-pins with a Christian, even though he be a court-preacher, Ithrow down all the pins, if I can. Bowling is a recreation for my body, writing for my mind. Writers do as well as they can. "

In this strain the conversation continued for some time. Another versionof the affair is that Mendelssohn was ordered to appear before the kingat Sanssouci on a certain Saturday. When he presented himself at thegate of the palace, the officer in charge asked him how he happened tohave been honored with an invitation to come to court. Mendelssohn said:"Oh, I am a juggler!" In point of fact, Frederick read the objectionablereview some time later, Venino translating it into French for him. Itwas probably in consequence of this vexatious occurrence thatMendelssohn made application for the privilege to be considered a_Schutzjude_, that is, a Jew with rights of residence. The Marquisd'Argens who lived with the king at Potsdam in the capacity of hisMajesty's philosopher-companion, earnestly supported his petition: "_Unphilosophe mauvais catholique supplie un philosophe mauvais protestantde donner le privilège à un philosophe mauvais juif. Il y a trop dephilosophie dans tout ceci que la raison ne soit pas du côté de lademande. _" The privilege was accorded to Mendelssohn on November 26, 1763. 

Being a _Schutzjude_, he could entertain the idea of marriage. Everybodyis familiar with the pretty anecdote charmingly told by BertholdAuerbach. Mendelssohn's was a love-match. In April 1760, he undertook atrip to Hamburg, and there became affianced to a "blue-eyed maiden, "Fromet Gugenheim. The story goes that the girl shrank back startled atMendelssohn's proposal of marriage. She asked him: "Do you believe thatmatches are made in heaven?" "Most assuredly, " answered Mendelssohn;"indeed, a singular thing happened in my own case. You know that, according to a Talmud legend, at the birth of a child, the announcementis made in heaven: So and so shall marry so and so. When I was born, myfuture wife's name was called out, and I was told that she wouldunfortunately be terribly humpbacked. 'Dear Lord, ' said I, 'a deformedgirl easily gets embittered and hardened. A girl ought to be beautiful. Dear Lord! Give me the hump, and let the girl be pretty, graceful, pleasing to the eye. '"

His engagement lasted a whole year. He was naturally desirous to improvehis worldly position; but never did it occur to him to do so at theexpense of his immaculate character. Veitel Ephraim and his associates, employed by Frederick the Great to debase the coin of Prussia, made himbrilliant offers in the hope of gaining him as their partner. He couldnot be tempted, and entered into a binding engagement with Bernhard. Hismarried life was happy, he was sincerely in love with his wife, and shebecame his faithful, devoted companion. 

Six children were the offspring of their union: Abraham, Joseph, Nathan, Dorothea, Henriette, and Recha. In Moses Mendelssohn's house, the one inwhich these children grew up, the barriers between the learned world andBerlin general society first fell. It was the rallying place of allseeking enlightenment, of all doing battle in the cause ofenlightenment. The rearing of his children was a source of great anxietyto Mendelssohn, whose means were limited. One day, shortly before hisdeath, Mendelssohn, walking up and down before his house in Spandauerstreet, absorbed in meditation, was met by an acquaintance, who askedhim: "My dear Mr. Mendelssohn, what is the matter with you? You look sotroubled. " "And so I am, " he replied; "I am thinking what my children'sfate will be, when I am gone. "

Moses Mendelssohn was wholly a son of his age, which perhaps explainsthe charm of his personality. His faults as well as his fine traitsmust be accounted for by the peculiarities of his generation. From thispoint of view, we can understand his desire to have his daughters make awealthy match. On the other hand, he could not have known, and if he hadknown, he could not have understood, that his daughters, touched by thebreath of a later time, had advanced far beyond his position. The Jewsof that day, particularly Jewish women, were seized by a mighty longingfor knowledge and culture. They studied French, read Voltaire, and drewinspiration from the works of the English freethinkers. One of thosewomen says: "We all would have been pleased to be heroines of romance;there was not one of us who did not rave over some hero or heroine offiction. " At the head of this band of enthusiasts stood DorotheaMendelssohn, brilliant, captivating, and gifted with a vividimagination. She was the leader, the animating spirit of her companions. To the reading-club organized by her efforts all the restless mindsbelonged. In the private theatricals at the houses of rich Jews, shefilled the principal rôles; and the mornings after her social triumphsfound her a most attentive listener to her father, who was in the habitof holding lectures for her and her brother Joseph, afterward publishedunder the name _Morgenstunden_. And this was the girl whom her fatherwished to see married at sixteen. When a rich Vienna banker was proposedas a suitable match, he said, "Ah! a man like Eskeles would greatlyplease my pride!" Dorothea did marry Simon Veit, a banker, a worthyman, who in no way could satisfy the demands of her impetuous nature. Yet her father believed her to be a happy wife. In her thirtieth yearshe made the acquaintance, at the house of her friend Henriette Herz, ofa young man, five years her junior, who was destined to change thecourse of her whole life. This was Friedrich von Schlegel, the chief ofthe romantic movement. Dorothea Veit, not beautiful, fascinated him byher brilliant wit. Under Schleiermacher's encouragement, the relationbetween the two quickly assumed a serious aspect. But it was not untillong after her father's death that Dorothea abandoned her husband andchildren, and became Schlegel's life-companion, first his mistress, later his wife. As Gutzkow justly says, his novel "Lucinde" describesthe relation in which Schlegel "permitted himself to be discovered. Lovefor Schlegel it was that consumed her, and led her to share with him athousand follies--Catholicism, Brahmin theosophy, absolutism, and theChristian asceticism of which she was a devotee at the time of herdeath. " Neither distress, nor misery, nor care, nor sorrow couldalienate her affections. Finally, she became a bigoted Catholic, and inVienna, their last residence, the daughter of Moses Mendelssohn wasseen, a lighted taper in her hand, one of a Catholic procession wendingits way to St. Stephen's Cathedral. 

The other daughter had a similar career. Henriette Mendelssohn filled aposition as governess first in Vienna, then in Paris. In the lattercity, her home was the meeting-place of the most brilliant men andwomen. She, too, denied her father and her faith. Recha, the youngestdaughter, was the unhappy wife of a merchant of Strelitz. Later on shesupported herself by keeping a boarding-school at Altona. Nathan, theyoungest son, was a mechanician; Abraham, the second, the father of thefamous composer, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, established with theoldest, Joseph, a still flourishing banking-business. Abraham's childrenand grandchildren all became converts to Christianity, but Moses andFromet died before their defection from the old faith. Fromet lived tosee the development of the passion for music which became hereditary inthe family. It is said that when, at the time of the popularity ofSchulz's "Athalia, " one of the choruses, with the refrain _toutl'univers_, was much sung by her children, the old lady cried outirritably, "_Wie mies ist mir vor tout l'univers_" ("How sick I am of'all the world!'"). [81]

To say apologetically that the circumstances of the times produced suchfeeling and action may be a partial defense of these women, but it isnot the truth. Henriette Mendelssohn's will is a characteristicdocument. The introduction runs thus: "In these the last words I addressto my dear relatives, I express my gratitude for all their help andaffection, and also that they in no wise hindered me in the practice ofmy religion. I have only myself to blame if the Lord God did not deem meworthy to be the instrument for the conversion of all my brothers andsisters to the Catholic Church, the only one endowed with saving grace. May the Lord Jesus Christ grant my prayer, and bless them all with thelight of His countenance. Amen!" Such were the sentiments of MosesMendelssohn's daughters!

The sons inclined towards Protestantism. Abraham is reported to havesaid that at first he was known as the son of his father, and later asthe father of his son. His wife was Leah Salomon, the sister of SalomonBartholdy, afterwards councillor of legation. His surname was reallyonly Salomon; Bartholdy he had assumed from the former owner of a gardenin Köpenikerstrasse on the Spree which he had bought. To him chiefly theformal acceptance of Christianity by Abraham's family was due. WhenAbraham hesitated about having his children baptized, Bartholdy wrote:"You say that you owe it to your father's memory (not to abandonJudaism). Do you think that you are committing a wrong in giving yourchildren a religion which you and they consider the better? In fact, youwould be paying a tribute to your father's efforts in behalf of trueenlightenment, and he would have acted for your children as you haveacted for them, perhaps for himself as I am acting for myself. " Thiscertainly is the climax of frivolity! So it happened that one ofMendelssohn's grandsons, Philip Veit, became a renowned Catholic churchpainter, and another, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, one of the mostcelebrated of Protestant composers. 

After his family, we are interested in the philosopher's disciples. Theyare men of a type not better, but different. What in his children sprangfrom impulsiveness and conviction, was due to levity and imitativenessin his followers. Mendelssohn's co-workers and successors formed theschool of _Biurists_, that is, expounders. In his commentary on thePentateuch he was helped by Solomon Dubno, Herz Homberg, and HartwigWessely. Solomon Dubno, the tutor of Mendelssohn's children, was alearned Pole, devoted heart and soul to the work on the Pentateuch. Hisliterary vanity having been wounded, he secretly left Mendelssohn'shouse, and could not be induced to renew his interest in theundertaking. Herz Homberg, an Austrian, took his place as tutor. Whenthe children were grown, he went to Vienna, and there was made imperialcouncillor, charged with the superintendence of the Jewish schools ofGalicia. It is a mistake to suppose that he used efforts to further thestudy of the Talmud among Jews. From letters recently published, writtenby and about him, it becomes evident that he was a common informer. Mendelssohn, of course, was not aware of his true character. The noblestof all was Naphtali Hartwig Wessely, a poet, a pure man, a sincere loverof mankind. 

The other prominent members of Mendelssohn's circle were: Isaac Euchel, the "restorer of Hebrew prose, " as he has been called, whose chiefpurpose was the reform of the Jewish order of service and Jewishpedagogic methods; Solomon Maimon, a wild fellow, who in hisautobiography tells his own misdeeds, by many of which Mendelssohn wascaused annoyance; Lazarus ben David, a modern Diogenes, the apostle ofKantism; and, above all, David Friedländer, an enthusiastic herald ofthe new era, a zealous champion of modern culture, a pure, seriouscharacter with high ethical ideals, whose aims, inspired though theywere by most exalted intentions, far overstepped the bounds set to himas a Jew and the disciple of Mendelssohn. Kant's philosophy found manyardent adherents among the Jews at that time. Beside the old there wasgrowing up a new generation which, having no obstructions placed in itspath after Mendelssohn's death, aggressively asserted its principles. 

The first Jew after Mendelssohn to occupy a position of prominence inthe social world of Berlin was his pupil Marcus Herz, with the titleprofessor and aulic councillor, "praised as a physician, esteemed as aphilosopher, and extolled as a prodigy in the natural sciences. Hislectures on physics, delivered in his own house, were attended bymembers of the highest aristocracy, even by royal personages. "

In circles like his, the equalization of the Jews with the othercitizens was animatedly discussed, by partisans and opponents. In thetheatre-going public, a respectable minority, having once seen "Nathanthe Wise" enacted, protested against the appearance upon the stage ofthe trade-Jew, speaking the sing-song, drawling German vulgarly supposedto be peculiar to all Jews (_Mauscheln_). As early as 1771, Marcus Herzhad entered a vigorous protest against _mauscheln_, and at the firstperformance of "The Merchant of Venice" on August 16, 1788, the famousactor Fleck declaimed a prologue, composed by Ramler, in which hedisavowed any intention to "sow hatred against the Jews, the brethren infaith of wise Mendelssohn, " and asserted the sole purpose of the dramato be the combating of folly and vice wherever they appear. 

Marcus Herz's wife was Henriette Herz, and in 1790, when Alexander andWilhelm Humboldt first came to her house, the real history of the Berlin_salon_ begins. The Humboldts' acquaintance with the Herz family datesfrom the visit of state councillor Kunth, the tutor of the Humboldtbrothers, to Marcus Herz to advise with him about setting up alightning-rod, an extraordinary novelty at the time, on the castle atTegel. Shortly afterward, Kunth introduced his two pupils to Herz andhis wife. So the Berlin _salon_ owed its origin to a lightning-rod;indeed, it may itself be called an electrical conductor for all thespiritual forces, recently brought into play, and still struggling tomanifest their undeveloped strength. Up to that time there had beennothing like society in the city of intelligence. Of course there was nodearth of scholars and clever, brilliant people, but insuperableobstacles seemed to prevent their social contact with one another. Outside of Moses Mendelssohn's house, until the end of the eighties theonly _rendezvous_ of wits, scholars, and literary men, the preferencewas for magnificent banquets and noisy carousals, each rank entertainingits own members. In the middle class, the burghers, the social instincthad not awakened at all. Alexander Humboldt significantly dated hisfirst letter to Henriette Herz from _Schloss Langeweile_. In the courseof time the desire for spiritual sympathy led to the formation ofreading clubs and _conversazioni_. These were the elements that finallyproduced Berlin society. 

The prototype of the German _salon_ naturally was the _salon_ of therococo period. Strangely enough, Berlin Jews, disciples, friends, anddescendants of Moses Mendelssohn, were the transplanters of the foreignproduct to German soil. Untrammelled as they were in this respect bytraditions, they hearkened eagerly to the new dispensation issuing fromWeimar, and they were in no way hampered in the choice of theirhero-guides to Olympus. Berlin irony, French sparkle, and Jewish witmoulded the social forms which thereafter were to be characteristic ofsociety at the capital, and called forth pretty much all that wascharming in the society and pleasing in the light literature of theBerlin of the day. 

To judge Henriette Herz justly we must beware alike of the extravaganceof her biographer and the malice of her friend Varnhagen von Ense; theformer extols her cleverness to the skies, the other degrades her to thelevel of the commonplace. The two seem equally unreliable. She wasneither extremely witty nor extremely cultured. She had a singularlyclear mind, and possessed the rare faculty of spreading about her anatmosphere of ease and cheer--good substitutes for wit andintellectuality. Upon her beauty and amiability rested the popularity ofher _salon_, which succeeded in uniting all the social factors of thatperiod. 

The nucleus of her social gatherings consisted of the representatives ofthe old literary traditions, Nicolai, Ramler, Engel, and Moritz, andthey curiously enough attracted the theologians Spalding, Teller, Zöllner, and later Schleiermacher, whose intimacy with his hostess is amatter of history. Music was represented by Reichardt and Wesseli; art, by Schadow; and the nobility by Bernstorff, Dotina, Brinkmann, Friedrichvon Gentz, and the Humboldts. Her drawing-room was the hearth of theromantic movement, and as may be imagined, her example was followed forbetter and for worse by her friends and sisters in faith, so that by theend of the century, Berlin could boast a number of _salons_, meeting-places of the nobility, literary men, and cultured Jews, for thefriendly exchange of spiritual and intellectual experiences. HenrietteHerz's _salon_ became important not only for society in Berlin, but alsofor German literature, three great literary movements being sheltered init: the classical, the romantic, and, through Ludwig Börne, that of"Young Germany. " Judaism alone was left unrepresented. In fact, she andall her cultured Jewish friends hastened to free themselves of theirtroublesome Jewish affiliations, or, at least, concealed them as bestthey could. Years afterwards, Börne spent his ridicule upon theJewesses of the Berlin _salons_, with their enormous racial noses andtheir great gold crosses at their throats, pressing into Trinity churchto hear Schleiermacher preach. But justice compels us to say that thesewomen did not know Judaism, or knew it only in its slave's garb. Hadthey had a conception of its high ethical standard, of the wealth of itspoetic and philosophic thoughts, being women of rare mental gifts andbroad liberality, they certainly would not have abandoned Judaism. Butthe Judaism of their Berlin, as represented by its religious teachersand the leaders of the Jewish community, most of them, according toMendelssohn's own account, immigrant Poles, could not appeal to women ofkeen, intellectual sympathies, and tastes conforming to the ideals ofthe new era. 

As for Mendelssohn's friends who flocked to his hospitable home--theirnames are household words in the history of German literature. Nicolaiand Lessing must be mentioned before all others, but no one came toBerlin without seeking Moses Mendelssohn--Goethe, Herder, Wieland, Hennings, Abt, Campe, Moritz, Jerusalem. Joachim Campe has left anaccount of his visit at Mendelssohn's house, which is probably a justpicture of its attractions. [82] He says: "On a Friday afternoon, my wifeand myself, together with some of the distinguished representatives ofBerlin scholarship, visited Mendelssohn. We were chatting over ourcoffee, when Mendelssohn, about an hour before sundown, rose from hisseat with the words: 'Ladies and gentlemen, I must leave you to receivethe Sabbath. I shall be with you again presently; meantime my wife willenjoy your company doubly. ' All eyes followed our amiablephilosopher-host with reverent admiration as he withdrew to an adjoiningroom to recite the customary prayers. At the end of half an hour hereturned, his face radiant, and seating himself, he said to his wife:'Now I am again at my post, and shall try for once to do the honors inyour place. Our friends will certainly excuse you, while you fulfil yourreligious duties. ' Mendelssohn's wife excused herself, joined herfamily, consecrated the Sabbath by lighting the Sabbath lamp, andreturned to us. We stayed on for some hours. " Is it possible to conceiveof a more touching picture?

When Duchess Dorothea of Kurland, and her sister Elise von der Reckewere living at Friedrichsfelde near Berlin in 1785, they invitedMendelssohn, whom they were eager to know, to visit them. When dinnerwas announced, Mendelssohn was not to be found. The companion of the twoladies writes in her journal:[83] "He had quietly slipped away to theinn at which he had ordered a frugal meal. From a motive entirely worthyI am sure, this philosopher never permits himself to be invited to ameal at a Christian's house. Not to be deprived of Mendelssohn's societytoo long, the duchess rose from the table as soon as possible. "Mendelssohn returned, stayed a long time, and, on bidding adieu to theduchess, he said: "To-day, I have had a chat with mind. "

This was Berlin society at Mendelssohn's time, and its toleration andhumanity are the more to be valued as the majority of Jews by no meansemulated Mendelssohn's enlightened example. All their energies wereabsorbed in the effort of compliance with the charter of Frederick theGreat, which imposed many vexatious restrictions. On marrying, they werestill compelled to buy the inferior porcelain made by the royalmanufactory. The whole of the Jewish community continued to be heldresponsible for a theft committed by one of its members. Jews were notyet permitted to become manufacturers. Bankrupt Jews, withoutinvestigation of each case, were considered cheats. Their use of landand waterways was hampered by many petty obstructions. In every field aninsurmountable barrier rose between them and their Christianfellow-citizens. Mendelssohn's great task was the moral and spiritualregeneration of his brethren in faith. In all disputes his word wasfinal. He hoped to bring about reforms by influencing his people's innerlife. Schools were founded, and every means used to further culture andeducation, but he met with much determined opposition among hisfellow-believers. Of Ephraim, the debaser of the coin, we have spoken;also of the king's manner towards Jews. Here is another instance of hisbrusqueness: Abraham Posner begged for permission to shave his beard. Frederick wrote on the margin of his petition: "_Der Jude Posner sollmich und seinen Bart ungeschoren lassen. _"

Lawsuits of Jews against French and German traders made a great stir inthose days. It was only after much annoyance that a naturalizationpatent was obtained by the family of Daniel Itzig, the father-in-law ofDavid Friedländer, founder of the Jews' Free School in Berlin. In othercases, no amount of effort could secure the patent, the king saying:"Whatever concerns your trade is well and good. But I cannot permit youto settle tribes of Jews in Berlin, and turn it into a youngJerusalem. "--

This is a picture of Jewish society in Berlin one hundred years ago. Itunited the most diverse currents and tendencies, emanating fromromanticism, classicism, reform, orthodoxy, love of trade, and effortsfor spiritual regeneration. In all this queer tangle, Moses Mendelssohnalone stands untainted, his form enveloped in pure, white light. 

LEOPOLD ZUNZ[84]

We are assembled for the solemn duty of paying a tribute to the memoryof him whose name graces our lodge. A twofold interest attaches us toLeopold Zunz, appealing, as he does, to our local pride, and, beyond andabove that, to our Jewish feelings. Leopold Zunz was part of the Berlinof the past, every trace of which is vanishing with startling rapidity. Men, houses, streets are disappearing, and soon naught but a memory willremain of old Berlin, not, to be sure, a City Beautiful, yet filled forhim that knew it with charming associations. A precious remnant of thisdear old Berlin was buried forever, when, on one misty day of the springof 1886, we consigned to their last resting place the mortal remains ofLeopold Zunz. Memorial addresses are apt to abound in such expressionsas "immortal, " "imperishable, " and in flowery tributes. This one shallnot indulge in them, although to no one could they more fittingly beapplied than to Leopold Zunz, a pioneer in the labyrinth of science, andthe architect of many a stately palace adorning the path but latelydiscovered by himself. Surely, such an one deserves the cordialrecognition and enduring gratitude of posterity. 

Despite the fact that Zunz was born at Detmold (August 10, 1794), he wasan integral part of old Berlin--a Berlin citizen, not by birth, but byvocation, so to speak. His being was intertwined with its life by athousand tendrils of intellectual sympathy. The city, in turn, or, to betopographically precise, the district between _Mauerstrasse_ and_Rosenstrasse_ knew and loved him as one of its public characters. Timewas when his witticisms leapt from mouth to mouth in the circuit betweenthe Varnhagen _salon_ and the synagogue in the _Heidereutergasse_, everywhere finding appreciative listeners. An observer stationed _Unterden Linden_ daily for more than thirty years might have seen a peculiarcouple stride briskly towards the _Thiergarten_ in the early afternoon. The loungers at Spargnapani's _café_ regularly interrupted their endlessnewspaper reading to crane their necks and say to one another, "There goDr. Zunz and his wife. "

In his obituary notice of the poet Mosenthal, Franz Dingelstedtroguishly says: "He was of poor, albeit Jewish parentage. " The sameapplies to Zunz, only the saying would be truer, if not so witty, inthis form: "He was of Jewish, hence of poor, parentage. " Among GermanJews throughout the middle ages and up to the first half of thiscentury, poverty was the rule, a comfortable competency a rareexception, wealth an unheard of condition. But Jewish poverty wasrelieved of sordidness by a precious gift of the old rabbis, who said:"Have a tender care of the children of the poor; from them goeth forththe Law"; an admonition and a prediction destined to be illustrated inthe case of Zunz. Very early he lost his mother, and the year 1805 findshim bereft of both parents, under the shelter and in the loving care ofan institution founded by a pious Jew in Wolfenbüttel. Here he wastaught the best within the reach of German Jews of the day, the _alpha_and _omega_ of whose knowledge and teaching were comprised in theTalmud. The Wolfenbüttel school may be called progressive, inasmuch as ateacher, watchmaker by trade and novel-writer by vocation, was engagedto give instruction four times a week in the three R's. We may be surethat those four lessons were not given with unvarying regularity. 

In his scholastic home, Leopold Zunz met Isaac Marcus Jost, a waif likehimself, later the first Jewish historian, to whom we owe interestingdetails of Zunz's early life. In his memoirs[85] he tells the following:"Zunz had been entered as a pupil before I arrived. Even in those earlydays there were evidences of the acumen of the future critic. He wasdominated by the spirit of contradiction. On the sly we studied grammar, his cleverness helping me over many a stumbling-block. He was verywitty, and wrote a lengthy Hebrew satire on our tyrants, from which wederived not a little amusement as each part was finished. Unfortunately, the misdemeanor was detected, and the _corpus delicti_ consigned to theflames, but the sobriquet _chotsuf_ (impudent fellow) clung to thewriter. "

It is only just to admit that in this _Beth ha-Midrash_ Zunz laid thefoundation of the profound, comprehensive scholarship on Talmudicsubjects, the groundwork of his future achievements as a critic. Thecircumstance that both these embryo historians had to draw their firstinformation about history from the Jewish German paraphrase of"Yosippon, " an historical compilation, is counterbalanced by carefulinstruction in Rabbinical literature, whose labyrinthine ways soonbecame paths of light to them. 

A new day broke, and in its sunlight the condition of affairs changed. In 1808 the _Beth ha-Midrash_ was suddenly transformed into the"Samsonschool, " still in useful operation. It became a primary school, conducted on approved pedagogic principles, and Zunz and Jost were amongthe first registered under the new, as they had been under the old, administration. Though the one was thirteen, and the other fourteenyears old, they had to begin with the very rudiments of reading andwriting. Campe's juvenile books were the first they read. A year laterfinds them engaged in secretly studying Greek, Latin, and mathematicsduring the long winter evenings, by the light of bits of candles made bythemselves of drippings from the great wax tapers in the synagogue. After another six months, Zunz was admitted to the first class of theWolfenbüttel, and Jost to that of the Brunswick, _gymnasium_. Itcharacterizes the men to say that Zunz was the first, and Jost thethird, Jew in Germany to enter a _gymnasium_. Now progress was rapid. The classes of the _gymnasium_ were passed through with astounding ease, and in 1811, with a minimum of luggage, but a very considerable mentalequipment, Zunz arrived in Berlin, never to leave it except for shortperiods. He entered upon a course in philology at the newly foundeduniversity, and after three years of study, he was in the unenviableposition to be able to tell himself that he had attained to--nothing. 

For, to what could a cultured Jew attain in those days, unless he becamea lawyer or a physician? The Hardenberg edict had opened academicalcareers to Jews, but when Zunz finished his studies, that provision wascompletely forgotten. So he became a preacher. A rich Jew, Jacob HerzBeer, the father of two highly gifted sons, Giacomo and Michael Beer, had established a private synagogue in his house, and here officiatedEdward Kley, C. Günsburg, J. L. Auerbach, and, from 1820 to 1822, Leopold Zunz. It is not known why he resigned his position, but to inferthat he had been forced to embrace the vocation of a preacher by thestress of circumstances is unjust. At that juncture he probably wouldhave chosen it, if he had been offered the rectorship of the Berlinuniversity; for, he was animated by somewhat of the spirit that urgedthe prophets of old to proclaim and fulfil their mission in the midst ofstorms and in despite of threatening dangers. 

Zunz's sermons delivered from 1820 to 1822 in the first German reformtemple are truly instinct with the prophetic spirit. The breath of amighty enthusiasm rises from the yellowed pages. Every word testifiesthat they were indited by a writer of puissant individuality, disengagedfrom the shackles of conventional homiletics, and boldly striking out onuntrodden paths. In the Jewish Berlin of the day, a rationalistic, half-cultured generation, swaying irresolutely between Mendelssohn andSchleiermacher, these new notes awoke sympathetic echoes. But scarcelyhad the music of his voice become familiar, when it was hushed. In 1823, a royal cabinet order prohibited the holding of the Jewish service inGerman, as well as every other innovation in the ritual, and so Germansermons ceased in the synagogue. Zunz, who had spoken like Moses, nowheld his peace like Aaron, in modesty and humility, yielding to theinevitable without rancor or repining, always loyal to the exalted idealwhich inspired him under the most depressing circumstances. He dedicatedhis sermons, delivered at a time of religious enthusiasm, to "youth atthe crossroads, " whom he had in mind throughout, in the hope that theymight "be found worthy to lead back to the Lord hearts, which, throughdeception or by reason of stubbornness, have fallen away from Him. "

The rescue of the young was his ideal. At the very beginning of hiscareer he recognized that the old were beyond redemption, and that, ifresponse and confidence were to be won from the young, the expounding ofthe new Judaism was work, not for the pulpit, but for the professor'schair. "Devotional exercises and balmy lotions for the soul" could notheal their wounds. It was imperative to bring their latent strength intoplay. Knowing this to be his pedagogic principle, we shall not go farwrong, if we suppose that in the organization of the "Society for JewishCulture and Science" the initial step was taken by Leopold Zunz. In 1819when the mobs of Würzburg, Hamburg, and Frankfort-on-the-Main revivedthe "Hep, hep!" cry, three young men, Edward Gans, Moses Moser, andLeopold Zunz conceived the idea of a society with the purpose ofbringing Jews into harmony with their age and environment, not byforcing upon them views of alien growth, but by a rational training oftheir inherited faculties. Whatever might serve to promote intelligenceand culture was to be nurtured: schools, seminaries, academies, were tobe erected, literary aspirations fostered, and all public-spiritedenterprises aided; on the other hand, the rising generation was to beinduced to devote itself to arts, trades, agriculture, and the appliedsciences; finally, the strong inclination to commerce on the part ofJews was to be curbed, and the tone and conditions of Jewish societyradically changed--lofty goals for the attainment of which most limitedmeans were at the disposal of the projectors. The first fruits of thesociety were the "Scientific Institute, " and the "Journal for theScience of Judaism, " published in the spring of 1822, under theeditorship of Zunz. Only three numbers appeared, and they met with sosmall a sale that the cost of printing was not realized. Means wereinadequate, the plans magnificent, the times above all not ripe for suchideals. The "Scientific Institute" crumbled away, too, and in 1823, thesociety was breathing its last. Zunz poured out the bitterness of hisdisappointment in a letter written in the summer of 1824 to his Hamburgfriend Immanuel Wohlwill:

"I am so disheartened that I can nevermore believe in Jewish reform. Astone must be thrown at this phantasm to make it vanish. Good Jews areeither Asiatics, or Christians (unconscious thereof), besides a smallminority consisting of myself and a few others, the possibility ofmentioning whom saves me from the imputation of conceit, though, truthto say, the bitterness of irony cares precious little for the forms ofgood society. Jews, and the Judaism which we wish to reconstruct, are aprey to disunion, and the booty of vandals, fools, money-changers, idiots, and _parnassim_. [86] Many a change of season will pass over thisgeneration, and leave it unchanged: internally ruptured; rushing intothe arms of Christianity, the religion of expediency; without staminaand without principle; one section thrust aside by Europe, andvegetating in filth with longing eyes directed towards the Messiah's assor other member of the long-eared fraternity; the other occupied withfingering state securities and the pages of a cyclopædia, and constantlyoscillating between wealth and bankruptcy, oppression and tolerance. Their own science is dead among Jews, and the intellectual concerns ofEuropean nations do not appeal to them, because, faithless tothemselves, they are strangers to abstract truth and slaves ofself-interest. This abject wretchedness is stamped upon theirpenny-a-liners, their preachers, councillors, constitutions, _parnassim_, titles, meetings, institutions, subscriptions, theirliterature, their book-trade, their representatives, their happiness, and their misfortune. No heart, no feeling! All a medley of prayers, banknotes, and _rachmones_, [87] with a few strains of enlightenment and_chilluk_![88]--

Now, my friend, after so revolting a sketch of Judaism, you will hardlyask why the society and the journal have vanished into thin air, and aremissed as little as the temple, the school, and the rights ofcitizenship. The society might have survived despite its splitting upinto sections. That was merely a mistake in management. The truth isthat it never had existence. Five or six enthusiasts met together, andlike Moses ventured to believe that their spirit would communicateitself to others. That was self-deception. _The only imperishablepossession rescued from this deluge is the science of Judaism. It liveseven though not a finger has been raised in its service since hundredsof years. I confess that, barring submission to the judgment of God, Ifind solace only in the cultivation of the science of Judaism. _

As for myself, those rough experiences of mine shall assuredly notpersuade me into a course of action inconsistent with my highestaspirations. I did what I held my duty. I ceased to preach, not in orderto fall away from my own words, but because I realized that I waspreaching in the wilderness. _Sapienti sat_. . . . After all that I havesaid, you will readily understand that I cannot favor an undulyostentatious mode of dissolution. Such a course would be prompted by thevanity of the puffed-out frog in the fable, and affect the Jews . . . Aslittle as all that has gone before. There is nothing for the members todo but to remain unshaken, and radiate their influence in their limitedcircles, leaving all else to God. "

The man who wrote these words, it is hard to realize, had not yet passedhis thirtieth year, but his aim in life was perfectly defined. He knewthe path leading to his goal, and--most important circumstance--neverdeviated from it until he attained it. His activity throughout lifeshows no inconsistency with his plans. It is his strength of character, rarest of attributes in a time of universal defection from the Jewishstandard, that calls for admiration, accorded by none so readily as byhis companions in arms. Casting up his own spiritual accounts, HeinrichHeine in the latter part of his life wrote of his friend Zunz:[89] "Inthe instability of a transition period he was characterized byincorruptible constancy, remaining true, despite his acumen, hisscepticism, and his scholarship, to self-imposed promises, to theexalted hobby of his soul. A man of thought and action, he created andworked when others hesitated, and sank discouraged, " or, what Heineprudently omitted to say, deserted the flag, and stealthily slunk out ofthe life of the oppressed. 

In Zunz, strength of character was associated with a mature, richlystored mind. He was a man of talent, of character, and of science, andthis rare union of traits is his distinction. At a time when themajority of his co-religionists could not grasp the plain, elementarymeaning of the phrase, "the science of Judaism, " he made it the loadstarof his life. 

Sad though it be, I fear that it is true that there are those of thisgeneration who, after the lapse of years, are prompted to repeat thequestion put by Zunz's contemporaries, "What is the science of Judaism?"Zunz gave a comprehensive answer in a short essay, "On RabbinicalLiterature, " published by Mauer in 1818:[90] "When the shadows ofbarbarism were gradually lifting from the mist-shrouded earth, and lightuniversally diffused could not fail to strike the Jews scatteredeverywhere, a remnant of old Hebrew learning attached itself to new, foreign elements of culture, and in the course of centuries enlightenedminds elaborated the heterogeneous ingredients into the literaturecalled rabbinical. " To this rabbinical, or, to use the more fitting nameproposed by himself, this neo-Hebraic, Jewish literature and science, Zunz devoted his love, his work, his life. Since centuries this fieldof knowledge had been a trackless, uncultivated waste. He who wouldpass across, had need to be a pathfinder, robust and energetic, able toconcentrate his mind upon a single aim, undisturbed by distractinginfluences. Such was Leopold Zunz, who sketched in bold, but admirablyprecise outlines the extent of Jewish science, marking the boundaries ofits several departments, estimating its resources, and laying out thework and aims of the future. The words of the prophet must have appealedto him with peculiar force: "I remember unto thee the kindness of thyyouth, the love of thy espousals, thy going after me in the wilderness, through a land that is not sown. "

Again, when there was question of cultivating the desert soil, andseeking for life under the rubbish, Zunz was the first to presenthimself as a laborer. The only fruit of the Society for Jewish Cultureand Science, during the three years of its existence, was the "Journalfor the Science of Judaism, " and its publication was due exclusively toZunz's perseverance. Though only three numbers appeared, a positiveaddition to our literature was made through them in Zunz's biographicalessay on Rashi, the old master expounder of the Bible and the Talmud. Byits arrangement of material, by its criticism and grouping of facts, andnot a little by its brilliant style, this essay became the model for allfuture work on kindred subjects. When the society dissolved, and Zunzwas left to enjoy undesired leisure, he continued to work on the lineslaid down therein. Besides, Zunz was a political journalist, for manyyears political editor of "Spener's Journal, " and a contributor to the_Gesellschafter_, the _Iris_, _Die Freimütigen_, and other publicationsof a literary character. From 1825 to 1829, he was a director of thenewly founded Jewish congregational school; for one year he occupied theposition of preacher at Prague; and from 1839 to 1849, the year of itsfinal closing, he acted as trustee of the Jewish teachers' seminary inBerlin. Thereafter he had no official position. 

As a politician he was a pronounced democrat. Reading his politicaladdresses to-day, after a lapse of half a century, we find in them theclearness and sagacity that distinguish the scientific productions ofthe investigator. Here is an extract from his words of consolationaddressed to the families of the heroes of the March revolution of1848:[91]

"They who walked our streets unnoticed, who meditated in their quietstudies, toiled in their workshops, cast up accounts in offices, soldwares in the shops, were suddenly transformed into valiant fighters, andwe discovered them at the moment when like meteors they vanished. Whenthey grew lustrous, they disappeared from our sight, and when theybecame our deliverers, we lost the opportunity of thanking them. Deathhas made them great and precious to us. Departing they poured unmeasuredwealth upon us all, who were so poor. Our heads, parched like a summersky, produced no fruitful rain of magnanimous thoughts. The hearts inour bosoms, turned into stone, were bereft of human sympathies. Vanityand illusions were our idols; lies and deception poisoned our lives;lust and avarice dictated our actions; a hell of immorality and misery, corroding every institution, heated the atmosphere to suffocation, untilblack clouds gathered, a storm of the nations raged about us, andpurifying streaks of lightning darted down upon the barricades and intothe streets. Through the storm-wind, I saw chariots of fire and horsesof fire bearing to heaven the men of God who fell fighting for right andliberty. I hear the voice of God, O ye that weep, knighting your dearones. The freedom of the press is their patent of nobility, our hearts, their monuments. Every one of us, every German, is a mourner, and you, survivors, are no longer abandoned. "

In an election address of February 1849, [92] Zunz says: "The first steptowards liberty is to miss liberty, the second, to seek it, the third, to find it. Of course, many years may pass between the seeking and thefinding. " And further on: "As an elector, I should give my vote forrepresentatives only to men of principle and immaculate reputation, whoneither hesitate nor yield; who cannot be made to say cold is warm, andwarm is cold; who disdain legal subtleties, diplomatic intrigues, liesof whatever kind, even when they redound to the advantage of the party. Such are worthy of the confidence of the people, because conscience istheir monitor. They may err, for to err is human, but they will neverdeceive. "

Twelve years later, on a similar occasion, he uttered the followingprophetic words:[93] "A genuinely free form of government makes a peoplefree and upright, and its representatives are bound to be champions ofliberty and progress. If Prussia, unfurling the banner of liberty andprogress, will undertake to provide us with such a constitution, ourself-confidence, energy, and trustfulness will return. Progress will bethe fundamental principle of our lives, and out of our united efforts toadvance it will grow a firm, indissoluble union. Now, then, Germans! Beresolved, all of you, to attain the same goal, and your will shall be astorm-wind scattering like chaff whatever is old and rotten. In yourstruggle for a free country, you will have as allies the army of mightyminds that have suffered for right and liberty in the past. Now you aresplit up into tribes and clans, held together only by the bond oflanguage and a classic literature. You will grow into a great nation, ifbut all brother-tribes will join us. Then Germany, strongly secure inthe heart of Europe, will be able to put an end to the quailing beforeattacks from the East or the West, and cry a halt to war. The empire, some one has said, means peace. Verily, with Prussia at its head, theGerman empire means peace. "

Such utterances are characteristic of Zunz, the politician. His bestenergies and efforts, however, were devoted to his researches. Science, he believed, would bring about amelioration of political conditions;science, he hoped, would preserve Judaism from the storms and calamitiesof his generation, for the fulfilment of its historical mission. Possessed by this idea, he wrote _Die Gottesdienstlichen Vorträge derJuden_ ("Jewish Homiletics, " 1832), the basis of the future science ofJudaism, the first clearing in the primeval forest of rabbinicalwritings, through which the pioneer led his followers with steady stepand hand, as though walking on well trodden ground. Heinrich Heine, whoappreciated Zunz at his full worth, justly reckoned this book "among thenoteworthy productions of the higher criticism, " and another reviewerwith equal justice ranks it on a level with the great works of Böckh, Diez, Grimm, and others of that period, the golden age of philologicalresearch in Germany. 

Like almost all that Zunz wrote, _Die Gottesdienstlichen Vorträge derJuden_ was the result of a polemic need. By nature Zunz was acontroversialist. Like a sentinel upon the battlements, he kept a sharplookout upon the land. Let the Jews be threatened with injustice byruler, statesman, or scholar, and straightway he attacked the enemy withthe weapons of satire and science. One can fancy that the cabinet orderprohibiting German sermons in the synagogue, and so stifling theambition of his youth, awakened the resolve to trace the development ofthe sermon among Jews, and show that thousands of years ago thewell-spring of religious instruction bubbled up in Judah's halls ofprayer, and has never since failed, its wealth of waters overflowinginto the popular Midrash, the repository of little known, unappreciatedtreasures of knowledge and experience, accumulated in the course of manycenturies. 

In the preface to this book, Zunz, the democrat, says that for hisbrethren in faith he demands of the European powers, "not rights andliberties, but right and liberty. Deep shame should mantle the cheek ofhim who, by means of a patent of nobility conferred by favoritism, iswilling to rise above his _co-religionists_, while the law of the landbrands him by assigning him a place among the lowest of his_co-citizens_. Only in the rights common to all citizens can we findsatisfaction; only in unquestioned equality, the end of our pain. Liberty unshackling the hand to fetter the tongue; tolerance delightingnot in our progress, but in our decay; citizenship promising protectionwithout honor, imposing burdens without holding out prospects ofadvancement; they all, in my opinion, are lacking in love and justice, and such baneful elements in the body politic must needs engenderpestiferous diseases, affecting the whole and its every part. "

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

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

In the ardor of youth Zunz had borne the banner of reform; in middle agehe became convinced that the young generation of iconoclasts had rushedfar beyond the ideal goal of the reform movement cherished in hisvisions. As he had upheld the age and sacred uses of the German sermonagainst the assaults of the orthodox; so for the benefit and instructionof radical reformers, he expounded the value and importance of theHebrew liturgy in profound works, which appeared during a period of tenyears, crystallizing the results of a half-century's severe application. They rounded off the symmetry of his spiritual activity. For, whenMidrashic inspiration ceased to flow, the _piut_--synagoguepoetry--established itself, and the transformation from the one into theother was the active principle of neo-Hebraic literature for more than athousand years. Zunz's vivifying sympathies knit the old and the newinto a wondrously firm historical thread. Nowhere have the harmony andcontinuity of Jewish literary development found such adequate expressionas in his _Synagogale Poesie des Mittelalters_ ("Synagogue Poetry ofthe Middle Ages, " 1855), _Ritus des synagogalen Gottesdienstes_ ("TheRitual of the Synagogue, " 1859), and _Litteraturgeschichte dersynagogalen Poesie_ ("History of Synagogue Poetry, " 1864), the capstoneof his literary endeavors. 

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

These are samples of the thoughts underlying Zunz's great works, as wellas his numerous smaller, though not less important, productions:biographical and critical essays, legal opinions, sketches in thehistory of literature, reviews, scientific inquiries, polemical andliterary fragments, collected in his work _Zur Geschichte undLitteratur_ ("Contributions to History and Literature, " 1873), and inthree volumes of collected writings. Since the publication of his"History of Synagogue Poetry, " Zunz wrote only on rare occasions. Hislast work but one was _Deutsche Briefe_ (1872) on German language andGerman intellect, and his last, an incisive and liberal contribution toBible criticism (_Studie zur Bibelkritik_, 1874), published in the_Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_ in Leipsic. From that time on, when the death of his beloved wife, Adelheid Zunz, amost faithful helpmate, friend, counsellor, and support, occurred, hewas silent. 

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

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

Zunz's life and work are of incalculable importance to the present ageand to future generations. With eagle vision he surveyed the wholedomain of Jewish learning, and traced the lines of its development. Constructive as well as critical, he raised widely scattered fragmentsto the rank of a literature which may well claim a place beside theliteratures of the nations. Endowed with rare strength of character, heremained unflinchingly loyal to his ancestral faith, "the exalted hobbyof his soul"--a model for three generations. Jewish literature owes tohim a scientific style. He wrote epigrammatic, incisive, perspicuousGerman, stimulating and suggestive, such as Lessing used. The reformmovement he supported as a legitimate development of Judaism onhistorical lines. On the other hand, he fostered loyalty to Judaism bylucidly presenting to young Israel the value of his faith, hisintellectual heritage, and his treasures of poetry. Zunz, then, is theoriginator of a momentous phase in our development, producing among itsadherents as among outsiders a complete revolution in the appreciationof Judaism, its religious and intellectual aspects. Together withself-knowledge he taught his brethren self-respect. He was, in short, aclear thinker and acute critic; a German, deeply attached to his belovedcountry, and fully convinced of the supremacy of German mind; at thesame time, an ardent believer in Judaism, imbued with some of the spiritof the prophets, somewhat of the strength of Jewish heroes and martyrs, who sacrificed life for their conviction, and with dying lips made theancient confession: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord isone!"

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

HEINRICH HEINE AND JUDAISM

I

No modern poet has aroused so much discussion as Heinrich Heine. Hisworks are known everywhere, and quotations from them--gorgeousbutterflies, stinging gnats, buzzing bees--whizz and whirr through theair of our century. They are the _vade mecum_ of modern life in all itsmoods and variations. 

This high regard is a recent development. Within the last thirty years acomplete change has taken place in public opinion. Soon after the poet'sdeath, he was entirely neglected. The _Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung_, whose columns had for decades been enriched with his contributions, tookthree months to get up a little obituary notice. Then followed a periodof acrimonious detraction; at last, cordial appreciation has come. 

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

What is the attitude of Judaism? Does it acknowledge Heine as its son?Is it disposed to accept _cum beneficio inventarii_ the inheritance hehas bequeathed to it? To answer these questions we must review Heine'slife, his relations to Judaism, his opinions on Jewish subjects, and thequalities which prove him heir to the peculiarities of the Jewish race. 

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

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

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

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

My esteemed friend Rabbi Dr. Frank of Cologne has in his possession aHaggada, admirably illustrated, an heirloom at one time of the VanGeldern family, and it is not improbable that it was out of thisartistic book that Heinrich Heine asked the _Mah nishtannah_, thetraditional question of the _Seder_. 

Heine left home very young, and everybody knows that he was apprenticedto a merchant at Frankfort, and that his uncle Solomon's kindnessenabled him to devote himself to jurisprudence. But this, of importantbearing on our subject, is not a matter of common knowledge: _Always andeverywhere, especially when he had least intercourse with Jews, Jewishelements appear most prominently in Heine's life. _

A merry, light-hearted student, he arrived in Berlin in 1821. A curiousspectacle is presented by the Jewish Berlin of the day, dominated by the_salons_, and the women whose tact and scintillating wit made them thevery centre of general society. The traditions of Rahel Levin, HenrietteHerz, and other clever women, still held sway. But the state frustratedevery attempt to introduce reforms into Judaism. Two great partiesopposed each other more implacably than ever, the one clutching the old, the other yearning for the new. Out of the breach, salvation was in timeto sprout. In the first quarter of our century, more than three-fourthsof the Jewish population of Berlin embraced the ruling faith. This wasthe new, seditious element with which young Heine was thrown. Hisinteresting personality attracted general notice. All circles welcomedhim. The _salons_ did their utmost to make him one of their votaries. Romantic student clubs at Lutter's and Wegener's wine-rooms left nothinguntried to lure him to their nocturnal carousals. Even Hegel, thephilosopher, evinced marked interest in him. To whose allurements doeshe yield? Like his great ancestor, he goes to "his brethren languishingin captivity. " Some of his young friends, Edward Gans, Leopold Zunz, andMoses Moser, had formed a "Society for Jewish Culture and Science, " withBerlin as its centre, and Heinrich Heine became one of its most activemembers. He taught poor Jewish boys from Posen several hours a week inthe school established by the society, and all questions that came upinterested him. Joseph Lehmann took pleasure in repeatedly telling howseriously Heine applied himself to a review which he had undertaken towrite on the compilation of a German prayer-book for Jewish women. 

To the Berlin period belongs his _Almansor_, a dramatic poem which hassuffered the most contradictory criticism. In my opinion, it has usuallybeen misunderstood. _Almansor_ is intelligible only if regarded from aJewish point of view, and then it is seen to be the hymn of vengeancesung by Judaism oppressed. Substitute the names of a converted Berlinbanker and his wife for "Aly" and "Suleima, " Berlin under FrederickWilliam III. For "Saragossa, " the Berlin Thiergarten for the "Forest, "and the satire stands revealed. The following passage is characteristicof the whole poem:[98]

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

Such were Heine's views at that time, and with them he went toGöttingen. There, though Jewish society was entirely lacking, andcorrespondence with his Berlin friends desultory, his Jewish interestsgrew stronger than ever. There, inspired by the genius of Jewishhistory, he composed his _Rabbi von Bacharach_, the work which, by hisown confession, he nursed with unspeakable love, and which, he fondlyhoped, would "become an immortal book, a perpetual lamp in the dome ofGod. " Again Jewish conversions, a burning question of the day, were madeprominent. Heine's solution is beyond a cavil enlightened. The words aretruly remarkable with which Sarah, the beautiful Jewess, declines theservices of the gallant knight:[99] "Noble sir! Would you be my knight, then you must meet nations in a combat in which small praise and lesshonor are to be won. And would you be rash enough to wear my colors, then you must sew yellow wheels upon your mantle, or bind a blue-stripedscarf about your breast. For these are my colors, the colors of myhouse, named Israel, the unhappy house mocked at on the highways and thebyways by the children of fortune. "

Another illustration of Heine's views at that time of his life, and withthose views he one day went to the neighboring town of Heiligenstadt--tobe baptized. 

Who can sound the depths of a poet's soul? Who can divine what Heine'sthoughts, what his hopes were, when he took this step? His letters andconfessions of that period must be read to gain an idea of his innerworld. On one occasion he wrote to Moser, to whom he laid bare his mostintimate thoughts:[100] "Mentioning Japan reminds me to recommend to youGolovnin's 'Journey to Japan. ' Perhaps I may send you a poem to-day fromthe _Rabbi_, in the writing of which I unfortunately have beeninterrupted again. I beg that you speak to nobody about this poem, orabout what I tell you of my private affairs. A young Spaniard, at hearta Jew, is beguiled to baptism by the arrogance bred of luxury. He sendsthe translation of an Arabic poem to young Yehuda Abarbanel, with whomhe is corresponding. Perhaps he shrinks from directly confessing to hisfriend an action hardly to be called admirable. . . . Pray do not thinkabout this. "

And the poem? It is this:

 TO EDOM

 "Each with each has borne, in patience Longer than a thousand year-- _Thou_ dost tolerate my breathing, _I_ thy ravings calmly hear. 

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

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

A few weeks later he writes to Moser in a still more bitter strain: "Iknow not what to say. Cohen assures me that Gans is preachingChristianity, and trying to convert the children of Israel. If this isconviction, he is a fool; if hypocrisy, a knave. I shall not give uploving him, but I confess that I should have been better pleased to hearthat Gans had been stealing silver spoons. That you, dear Moser, shareGans's opinions, I cannot believe, though Cohen assures me of it, andsays that you told him so yourself. I should be sorry, if my own baptismwere to strike you more favorably. I give you my word of honor--if ourlaws allowed stealing silver spoons, I should not have been baptized. "Again he writes mournfully: "As, according to Solon, no man may becalled happy, so none should be called honest, before his death. I amglad that David Friedländer and Bendavid are old, and will soon die. Then we shall be certain of them, and the reproach of having had not asingle immaculate representative cannot be attached to our time. Pardonmy ill humor. It is directed mainly against myself. "

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

 TO AN APOSTATE

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

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

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

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

At Hamburg, in those days, Heine was repeatedly drawn into the conflictbetween reform and orthodoxy, between the Temple and the synagogue. Hisuncle Solomon Heine was a warm supporter of the Temple, but Heine, withcharacteristic inconsistency, admired the old rigorous rabbinical systemmore than the modern reform movement, which often called forth hisridicule. Yet, at bottom, his interest in the latter was strong, as itcontinued to be also in the Berlin educational society, and its "Journalfor the Science of Judaism, " of which, however, only three numbers wereissued. He once wrote from Hamburg to his friend Moser: "Last Saturday Iwas at the Temple, and had the pleasure with my own ears to hear Dr. Salomon rail against baptized Jews, and insinuate that they are temptedto become faithless to the religion of their fathers only by the hope ofpreferment. I assure you, the sermon was good, and some day I intend tocall upon the man. Cohen is doing the generous thing by me. I take my_Shabbes_ dinner with him; he heaps fiery _Kugel_ upon my head, andcontritely I eat the sacred national dish, which has done more for thepreservation of Judaism than all three numbers of the Journal. To besure, it has had a better sale. If I had time, I would write a prettylittle Jewish letter to Mrs. Zunz. I am getting to be a thoroughbredChristian; I am sponging on the rich Jews. "

They who find nothing but jest in this letter, do not understand Heine. A bitter strain of disgust, of unsparing self-denunciation, runs throughit--the feelings that dictate the jests and accusations of his_Reisebilder_. This was the period of Heine's best creations: for assuch his "Book of Songs, " _Buch der Lieder_, and his _Reisebilder_ mustbe considered. With a sudden bound he leapt into greatness andpopularity. 

The reader may ask me to point out in these works the features to betaken as the expression of the genius of the Jewish race. To understandour poet, we must keep in mind that _Heinrich Heine was a Jew born inthe days of romanticism in a town on the Rhine_. His intellect and hissensuousness, of Jewish origin, were wedded with Rhenish fancy andblitheness, and over these qualities the pale moonshine of romanticismshed its glamour. 

The most noteworthy characteristic of his writings, prose and verse, ishis extraordinary subjectivity, pushing the poet's _ego_ into theforeground. With light, graceful touch, he demonstrates the possibilityof unrestrained self-expression in an artistic guise. The boldness andenergy with which "he gave voice to his hidden self" were so novel, sosurprising, that his melodies at once awoke an echo. This subjectivityis his Jewish birthright. It is Israel's ingrained combativeness, formore than a thousand years the genius of its literature, whichthroughout reveals a predilection for abrupt contrasts, and is studdedwith unmistakable expressions of strong individuality. By virtue of hissubjectivity, which never permits him to surrender himselfunconditionally, the Jew establishes a connection between his _ego_ andwhatever subject he treats of. "He does not sink his own identity, andlose himself in the depths of the cosmos, nor roam hither and thither inthe limitless space of the world of thought. He dives down to search forpearls at the bottom of the sea, or rises aloft to gain a bird's-eyeview of the whole. The world encloses him as the works of a clock areheld in a case. His _ego_ is the hammer, and there is no sound unless, swinging rhythmically, itself touches the sides, now softly, nowboldly. " Not content to yield to an authority which would suppress hisfreedom of action, he traverses the world, and compels it to promote thedevelopment of his energetic nature. To these peculiarities of his raceHeine fell heir--to the generous traits growing out of markedindividuality, its grooves deepened by a thousand years of martyrdom, aswell as to the petty faults following in the wake of excessiveself-consciousness; which have furnished adversaries of the Jews withtexts and weapons. 

This subjectivity, traceable in his language and in his ancientliterature, it is that unfits the Jew for objective, philosophicinvestigation. It is, moreover, responsible for that energeticself-assertiveness for which the Aramæan language has coined the word_chutspa_, only partially rendered by arrogance. Possibly it is the rootof another quality which Heine owes to his Jewish extraction--his witHeine's scintillations are composed of a number of elements--of Englishhumor, French sparkle, German irony, and Jewish wit, all of which, saving the last, have been analyzed by the critics. Proneness tocensure, to criticism, and discussion, is the concomitant of keenintellect given to scrutiny and analysis. From the buoyancy of theJewish disposition, and out of the force of Jewish subjectivity, aroseJewish wit, whose first manifestations can be traced in the Talmud andthe Midrash. Its appeals are directed to both fancy and heart. Itdelights in antithesis, and, as was said above, is intimately connectedwith Jewish subjectivity. Its distinguishing characteristic is thedesire to have its superiority acknowledged without wounding thefeelings of the sensitive, and an explanation of its peculiarity can befound in the sad fate of the Jews. The heroes of Shakespere's tragediesare full of irony. Frenzy at its maddest pitch breaks out into merrywitticisms and scornful laughter. So it was with the Jews. The waves ofoppression, forever dashing over them, strung their nerves to the pointof reaction. The world was closed to them in hostility. There wasnothing for them to do but laugh--laugh with forced merriment frombehind prison bars, and out of the depths of their heartrendingresignation. Complaints it was possible to suppress, but no one couldforbid their laughter, ghastly though it was. M. G. Saphir, one of thebest exponents of Jewish wit, justly said: "The Jews seized the weaponof wit, since they were interdicted the use of every other sort ofweapon. " Whatever humdrum life during the middle ages offered them, hadto submit to the scalpel of their wit. 

As a rule, Jewish wit springs from a lively appreciation of what isingenious. A serious beginning suddenly and unexpectedly takes a merry, jocose turn, producing in Heine's elegiac passages the discordantendings so shocking to sensitive natures. But it is an injustice to thepoet to attribute these rapid transitions to an artist's vain fancy. Hissatire is directed against the ideals of his generation, not against theideal. Harsh, discordant notes do not express the poet's realdisposition. They are exaggerated, romantic feeling, for which hehimself, led by an instinctively pure conception of the good and thebeautiful, which is opposed alike to sickly sentimentality and jarringdissonance, sought the outlet of irony. 

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

Humor, then, grows out of the contemplation of the tragedy of life. Butit does not stop there. If the world is so pitiful, so fragile, it isnot worth a tear, not worth hatred, or contempt. The only sensiblecourse is to accept it as it is, as a nothing, an absolutecontradiction, calling forth ridicule. At this point, a sense of tragedyis transformed into demoniac glee. No more is this a permanent state. The humorist is too impulsive to accept it as final. Moreover, he feelsthat with the world he has annihilated himself. In the phantom realminto which he has turned the world, his laughter reverberates withghostlike hollowness. Recognizing that the world meant more to him thanhe was willing to admit, and that apart from it he has no being, heagain yields to it, and embraces it with increased passion and ardor. But scarcely has the return been effected, scarcely has he begun torealize the beauties and perfections of the world, when sadness, suffering, pain, and torture, obtrude themselves, and the oldoverwhelming sense of life's tragedy takes possession of him. This trainof thought, plainly discernible in Heine's poems, he also owes to hisdescent. A mind given to such speculations naturally seeks poetic solacein _Weltschmerz_, which, as everybody knows, is still another heirloomof his race. 

These are the most important characteristics, some admirable, somereprehensible, which Heine has derived from his race, and they are thevery ones that raised opponents against him, one of the most interestingand prominent among them being the German philosopher ArthurSchopenhauer. His two opinions on Heine, expressed at almost the sametime, are typical of the antagonism aroused by the poet. In his book, "The World as Will and Idea, "[102] he writes: "Heine is a true humoristin his _Romanzero_. Back of all his quips and gibes lies deepseriousness, _ashamed_ to speak out frankly. " At the same time he saysin his journal, published posthumously: "Although a buffoon, Heine hasgenius, and the distinguishing mark of genius, ingenuousness. On closeexamination, however, his ingenuousness turns out to have its root inJewish shamelessness; for he, too, belongs to the nation of which Riemersays that it knows neither shame nor grief. "

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

II

When, as Heine puts it, "a great hand solicitously beckoned, " he lefthis German fatherland in his prime, and went to Paris. In its sociableatmosphere, he felt more comfortable, more free, than in his own home, where the Jew, the author, the liberal, had encountered only prejudices. The removal to Paris was an inauspicious change for the poet, and thathe remained there until his end was still less calculated to redound tohis good fortune. He gave much to France, and Paris did little duringhis life to pay off the debt. The charm exercised upon every stranger byBabylon on the Seine, wrought havoc in his character and his work, andgives us the sole criterion for the rest of his days. Yet, despite hisdevotion to Paris, home-sickness, yearning for Germany, was henceforththe dominant note of his works. At that time Heine considered Judaism "along lost cause. " Of the God of Judaism, the philosophicaldemonstrations of Hegel and his disciples had robbed him; his knowledgeof doctrinal Judaism was a minimum; and his keen race-feeling, hishistorical instinct, was forced into the background by other sympathiesand antipathies. He was at that time harping upon the long cherishedidea that men can be divided into _Hellenists_ and _Nazarenes_. Himself, for instance, he looked upon as a well-fed Hellenist, while Börne was aNazarene, an ascetic. It is interesting, and bears upon our subject, that most of the verdicts, views, and witticisms which Heine fathersupon Börne in the famous imaginary conversation in the Frankfort_Judengasse_, might have been uttered by Heine himself. In fact, many ofthem are repeated, partly in the same or in similar words, in thejottings found after his death. 

This conversation is represented as having taken place during the Feastof _Chanukka_. Heine who, as said above, took pleasure at that time inimpersonating a Hellenist, gets Börne to explain to him that this feastwas instituted to commemorate the victory of the valiant Maccabees overthe king of Syria. After expatiating on the heroism of the Maccabees, and the cowardice of modern Jews, Börne says:[103]

"Baptism is the order of the day among the wealthy Jews. The evangelvainly announced to the poor of Judæa now flourishes among the rich. Itsacceptance is self-deception, if not a lie, and as hypocriticalChristianity contrasts sharply with the old Adam, who will crop out, these people lay themselves open to unsparing ridicule. --In the streetsof Berlin I saw former daughters of Israel wear crosses about theirnecks longer than their noses, reaching to their very waists. Theycarried evangelical prayer books, and were discussing the magnificentsermon just heard at Trinity church. One asked the other where she hadgone to communion, and all the while their breath smelt. Still moredisgusting was the sight of dirty, bearded, malodorous Polish Jews, hailing from Polish sewers, saved for heaven by the Berlin Society forthe Conversion of Jews, and in turn preaching Christianity in theirslovenly jargon. Such Polish vermin should certainly be baptized withcologne instead of ordinary water. "

This is to be taken as an expression of Heine's own feelings, which comeout plainly, when, "persistently loyal to Jewish customs, " he eats, "with good appetite, yes, with enthusiasm, with devotion, withconviction, " _Shalet_, the famous Jewish dish, about which he says:"This dish is delicious, and it is a subject for painful regret thatthe Church, indebted to Judaism for so much that is good, has failed tointroduce _Shalet_. This should be her object in the future. If ever shefalls on evil times, if ever her most sacred symbols lose their virtue, then the Church will resort to _Shalet_, and the faithless peoples willcrowd into her arms with renewed appetite. At all events the Jews willthen join the Church from conviction, for it is clear that it is only_Shalet_ that keeps them in the old covenant. Börne assures me thatrenegades who have accepted the new dispensation feel a sort ofhome-sickness for the synagogue when they but smell _Shalet_, so that_Shalet_ may be called the Jewish _ranz des vaches_. "

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

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

"Queer people this! Downtrodden for thousands of years, weeping always, suffering always, abandoned always by its God, yet clinging to Himtenaciously, loyally, as no other under the sun. Oh, if martyrdom, patience, and faith in despite of trial, can confer a patent ofnobility, then this people is noble beyond many another. --It would havebeen absurd and petty, if, as people accuse me, I had been ashamed ofbeing a Jew. Yet it were equally ludicrous for me to call myself aJew. --As I instinctively hold up to unending scorn whatever is evil, timeworn, absurd, false, and ludicrous, so my nature leads me toappreciate the sublime, to admire what is great, and to extol everyliving force. " Heine had spoken so much with deep earnestness. Jestinglyhe added: "Dear friend, if little Weill should visit us, you shall haveanother evidence of my reverence for hoary Mosaism. Weill formerly wasprecentor at the synagogue. He has a ringing tenor, and chants Judah'sdesert songs according to the old traditions, ranging from the simplemonotone to the exuberance of Old Testament cadences. My wife, who hasnot the slightest suspicion that I am a Jew, is not a little astonishedby this peculiar musical wail, this trilling and cadencing. When Weillsang for the first time, Minka, the poodle, crawled into hiding underthe sofa, and Cocotte, the polly, made an attempt to throttle himselfbetween the bars of his cage. 'M. Weill, M. Weill!' Mathilde criedterror-stricken, 'pray do not carry the joke too far. ' But Weillcontinued, and the dear girl turned to me, and asked imploringly:'Henri, pray tell me what sort of songs these are. ' 'They are ourGerman folk songs, ' said I, and I have obstinately stuck to thatexplanation. "

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

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

The completest picture of the transformation, truer than any given inletters, reports, or reminiscences, is in his last two productions, the_Romanzero_ and the "Confessions. " There can be no more explicitdescription of the poet's conversion than is contained in these"confessions. " During his sickness he sought a palliative for hispains--in the Bible. With a melancholy smile his mind reverted to thememories of his youth, to the heroism which is the underlying principleof Judaism. The Psalmist's consolations, the elevating principles laiddown in the Pentateuch, exerted a powerful attraction upon him, andfilled his soul with exalted thoughts, shaped into words in the"Confessions":[106] "Formerly I felt little affection for Moses, probably because the Hellenic spirit was dominant within me, and I couldnot pardon the Jewish lawgiver for his intolerance of images, and everysort of plastic representation. I failed to see that despite his hostileattitude to art, Moses was himself a great artist, gifted with the trueartist's spirit. Only in him, as in his Egyptian neighbors, the artisticinstinct was exercised solely upon the colossal and the indestructible. But unlike the Egyptians he did not shape his works of art out of brickor granite. His pyramids were built of men, his obelisks hewn out ofhuman material. A feeble race of shepherds he transformed into a peoplebidding defiance to the centuries--a great, eternal, holy people, God'speople, an exemplar to all other peoples, the prototype of mankind: hecreated Israel. With greater justice than the Roman poet could thisartist, the son of Amram and Jochebed the midwife, boast of havingerected a monument more enduring than brass. 

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

In view of such avowals, Heine's return to Judaism is an indubitablefact, and when one of his friends anxiously inquired about his relationto God, he could well answer with a smile: _Dieu me pardonnera; c'estson metier. _ In those days Heine made his will, his true, genuine will, to have been the first to publish which the present writer will alwaysconsider the distinction of his life. The introduction reads: "I die inthe belief in one God, Creator of heaven and earth, whose mercy Isupplicate in behalf of my immortal soul. I regret that in my writings Isometimes spoke of sacred things with levity, due not so much to my owninclination, as to the spirit of my age. If unwittingly I have offendedagainst good usage and morality, which constitute the true essence ofall monotheistic religions, may God and men forgive me. "

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE MUSIC OF THE SYNAGOGUE[107]

Ladies and Gentlemen:--Let the emotions aroused by the notes of thegreat masters, now dying away upon the air, continue to reverberate inyour souls. More forcibly and more eloquently than my weak words, theyexpress the thoughts and the feelings appropriate to this solemnoccasion. 

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

Towering head and shoulders above most of the group of restorers is hein whose honor we are assembled, to whom we bring greeting andcongratulation. To you, then, Herr Lewandowski, I address myself tooffer you the deep-felt gratitude and the cordial wishes of yourfriends, of the Berlin community, and, I may add, of the whole ofIsrael. You were appointed for large tasks--large tasks have yousuccessfully performed. At a time when Judaism was at a low ebb, onlyscarcely discernible indications promising a brighter future, Providencesent you to occupy a guide's position in the most important, thelargest, and the most intelligent Jewish community of Germany. For fiftyyears your zeal, your diligence, your faithfulness, your devotion, youraffectionate reverence for our past, and your exalted gifts, have gracedthe office. Were testimony unto your gifts and character needed, itwould be given by this day's celebration, proving, as it does, that yourbrethren have understood the underlying thought of your activities, havegrasped their bearing upon Jewish development, and have appreciatedtheir influence. 

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

A quarter of a century ago, when you celebrated the end of twenty-fiveyears of useful work, a better man stood here, and spoke to you. LeopoldZunz on that occasion said to you: "Old thoughts have been transformedby you into modern emotions, and long stored words seasoned with yourmelodies have made delicious food. "

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

Holy Writ places the origin of music in the primitive days of man, tersely pointing out, at the same time, music's conciliatory charms: itis the descendant of Cain, the fratricide, a son of Lemech, the slayerof a man to his own wounding, who is said to be the "father of all suchas play on the harp and guitar" (_Kinnor_ and _Ugab_). Another ofLemech's sons was the first artificer in every article of copper andiron, the inventor of weapons of war, as the former was the inventor ofstringed instruments. Both used brass, the one to sing, the other tofight. So music sprang from sorrow and combat. Song and roundelay, timbrels and harp, accompanied our forefathers on their wanderings, andpreceded the armed men into battle. So, too, the returning victor wasgreeted, and in the Temple on Moriah's crest, joyful songs of gratitudeextolled the grace of the Lord. From the harp issued the psalm dedicatedto the glory of God--love of art gave rise to the psalter, a song-bookfor the nations, and its author David may be called the founder of thenational and Temple music of the ancient Hebrews. With his song, hebanished the evil spirit from Saul's soul; with his skill on thepsaltery, he defeated his enemies, and he led the jubilant chorus in theHoly City singing to the honor and glory of the Most High. 

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

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

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

Whoever has heard, will never forget Israel's melodies, breaking forthinto rejoicing, then cast down with sadness: flinging out their notes tothe skies, then sinking into an abyss of grief: now elated, nowoppressed; now holding out hope, now moaning forth sorrow and pain. Theyconvey the whole of Judah's history--his glorious past, his mournfulpresent, his exalted future promised by God. As their tones flood oursoul, a succession of visions passes before our mental view: the Templein all its unexampled splendor, the exultant chorus of Levites, thepriests discharging their holy office, the venerable forms of thepatriarchs, the lawgiver-guide of the people, prophets with upliftedfinger of warning, worthy rabbis, pale-faced martyrs of the middle ages;but the melodies conjuring before our minds all these shadowy figureshave but one burden: "How should we sing the song of the Lord on thesoil of the stranger?"

That is the ever-recurring _motif_ of the Jewish music of the middleages. But the blending of widely different emotions is not favorable inthe creation of melody. Secular occurrences set their seal uponreligious music, of which some have so high a conception as to call itone of the seven liberal arts, or even to extol it beyond poetry. JacobLevi of Mayence (Maharil), living at the beginning of the fifteenthcentury, is considered the founder of German synagogue music, but hisproductions remained barren of poetic and devotional results. He drewhis best subjects from alien sources. At the time of the ItalianRenaissance, music had so firmly established itself in the appreciationof the people that a preacher, Judah Muscato, devoted the first of hiscelebrated sermons to music, assigning to it a high mission among thearts. He interpreted the legend of David's Æolian harp as a beautifulallegory. Basing his explanation on a verse in the Psalms, he showedthat it symbolizes a spiritual experience of the royal bard. Anotherwriter, Abraham ben David Portaleone, found the times still riper; hecould venture to write a theory of music, as taught him by his teachers, Samuel Arkevolti and Menahem Lonsano, both of whom had strongly opposedthe use of certain secular melodies then current in Italy, Germany, France, and Turkey for religious songs. Among Jewish musicians in thelatter centuries of the middle ages, the most prominent was SolomonRossi. He, too, failed to exercise influence on the shaping of Jewishmusic, which more and more delighted in grotesqueness and aberrationsfrom good taste. The origin of synagogue melodies was attributed toremoter and remoter periods; the most soulful hymns were adapted tofrivolous airs. Later still, at a time when German music had risen toits zenith, when Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven flourished, the Jewish strolling musician _Klesmer_, a mendicant in the world ofsong as in the world of finance, was wandering through the provinceswith his two mates. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

INDEX

Aaron, medical writer, 79

Abbahu, Haggadist, 21

Abbayu, rabbi, quoted, 232-233

Abina, rabbi, 19

Abitur, poet, 24

Aboab, Isaac, writer, 45, 130

Aboab, Samuel, Bible scholar, 45

Abrabanel, Isaac, scholar and statesman, 42, 99

Abrabanel, Judah, 42, 95

Abraham in Africa, 255

Abraham Bedersi, poet, 171

Abraham ben Chiya, scientist, 83, 93

Abraham ben David Portaleone, musician, 376

Abraham de Balmes, physician, 95

Abraham deï Mansi, Talmudist, 116

Abraham ibn Daud, philosopher, 35

Abraham ibn Ezra, exegete, 36 mathematician, 83

Abraham ibn Sahl, poet, 34, 88

Abraham Judæus. See Abraham ibn Ezra

Abraham of Sarteano, poet, 224

Abraham Portaleone, archæolegist, 45, 97

Abraham Powdermaker, legend of, 285-286

Abt and Mendelssohn, 314

Abyssinia, the Ten Tribes in, 262-263

Ackermann, Rachel, novelist, 119

Acosta, Uriel, alluded to, 100

_Acta Esther et Achashverosh_, drama, 244

Actors, Jewish, 232, 246, 247-248

Adia, poet, 24

Adiabene, Jews settle in, 251

Æsop's fables translated into Hebrew, 34

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

Afghanistan, the Ten Tribes in, 259

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

Agau spoken by the Falashas, 265

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

"Ahasverus, " farce, 244

Ahaz, king, alluded to, 250

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

Albert of Prussia, alluded to, 288

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

Albo, Joseph, philosopher, 42

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

Alemanno, Jochanan, Kabbalist, 95

Alessandro Farnese, alluded to, 98

Alexander III, pope, and Jewish diplomats, 99

Alexander the Great, 229, 254

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

Alfonsine Tables compiled, 92

Alfonso V of Portugal and Isaac Abrabanel, 99

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

Alfonso XI, of Castile, 170, 260

Alityros, actor, 232

Alkabez, Solomon, poet, 43

_Alliance Israélite Universelle_, and the Falashas, 264

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

_Almansor_ by Heine, 347

Almohades and Maimonides, 148

_Altweiberdeutsch. _ See _Judendeutsch_

Amatus Lusitanus, physician, 42, 97

Amharic spoken by the Falashas, 265

Amoraïm, Speakers, 58

Amos, prophet, alluded to, 251

Amsterdam, Marrano centre, 128-129

Anahuac and the Ten Tribes, 259

Anatoli. See Jacob ben Abba-Mari ben Anatoli

Anatomy in the Talmud, 77

Anna, Rashi's granddaughter, 118

Anti-Maimunists, 39-40

Antiochus Epiphanes, alluded to, 193

Antonio di Montoro, troubadour, 97, 180-181

Antonio dos Reys, on Isabella Correa, 129

Antonio Enriquez di Gomez. See Enriquez, Antonio. 

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

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

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

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

Argens, d', and Mendelssohn, 303

Aristeas, Neoplatonist, 17

Aristobulus, Aristotelian, 17

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

Arkevolti, Samuel, grammarian, 376

Armenia, the Ten Tribes in, 259

Arnstein, Benedict David, dramatist, 245

Art among Jews, 102

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

Arthurian legends in Hebrew, 87

Ascarelli, Deborah, poetess, 44, 124

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

Ashi, compiler of the Babylonian Talmud, 19

Ashkenasi, Hannah, authoress, 120

_Asireh ha-Tikwah_, by Joseph Pensa, 237-238

_Asiya_, Kabbalistic term, 41

Astruc, Bible critic, 13

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

Auerbach, J. L. , preacher, 322

_Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung_ and Heine, 340

Avenare. See Abraham ibn Ezra

Avencebrol. See Gabirol, Solomon

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

Averröes and Maimonides, 163-164

Avicebron. See Gabirol, Solomon

Avicenna and Maimonides, 156, 158

Azariah de Rossi, scholar, 45

_Azila_, Kabbalistic term, 41

Barrios, de, Daniel, critic, 47, 129

Barruchius, Valentin, romance writer, 171

Bartholdy, Salomon, quoted, 308

Bartolocci, Hebrew scholar, 48

Bassista, Sabbataï, bibliographer, 47

Bath Halevi, Talmudist, 117

Bechaï ibn Pakuda, philosopher, 35, 137

Beck. K. , poet, 49

_Beena_, Kabbalistic term, 41

Beer, Jacob Herz, establishes a synagogue, 322

Beer, M. , poet, 49

Behaim, Martin, scientist, 96

Belmonte, Bienvenida Cohen, poetess, 130

"Belshazzar" by Heine, 344

Bendavid. See Lazarus ben David

"Beni Israel" and the Ten Tribes, 259

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

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

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

_Beria_, Kabbalistic term, 41

Bernhard, employer of Mendelssohn, 298, 300, 304

Bernhardt, Sarah, actress, 246

Bernstein, Aaron, Ghetto novelist, 50 quoted, 272

Bernstorff, friend of Henriette Herz, 313

Berschadzky on Saul Wahl, 282

Beruriah, wife of Rabbi Meïr, 110-112

Bible. See Old Testament, The

Bible critics, 12, 13, 14

Bible dictionary, Jewish German, 100

"Birth and Death" from the Haggada, 66

_Biurists_, the Mendelssohn school, 309

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

Blanche de Bourbon, wife of Pedro I, 169

Bleichroeder quoted, 296-297

Bloch, Pauline, writer, 140

Boccaccio, alluded to, 35

Böckh, alluded to, 333

Bonet di Lattes, astronomer, 95

Bonifacio, Balthasar, accuser of Sara Sullam, 127

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

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

"Book of Songs" by Heine, 353

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

Borromeo, cardinal, alluded to, 98

Brinkmann, friend of Henriette Herz, 313

Bruno di Lungoborgo, work of, translated, 86

Bruno, Giordano, philosopher, 82

_Buch der Lieder_ by Heine, 353

Buffon quoted, 89

Büschenthal, L. M. , dramatist, 245

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

Calderon, alluded to, 239

Calderon, the Jewish, 100

Calendar compiled by the rabbis, 77

Caliphs and Jewish diplomats, 98

Campe, Joachim, on Mendelssohn, 314-315

Cardinal, Peire, troubadour, 171-172

Casimir the Great, Jews under, 286

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

Castro de, Orobio, author, 47

Çeba, Ansaldo, and Sara Sullam, 125-128

_Celestina_, by Rodrigo da Cota, 97, 235

Chananel, alluded to, 257

Chanukka, story of, 359-360

Charlemagne and Jewish diplomats, 98

Charles of Anjou, patron of Hebrew learning, 92

Chasan, Bella, historian, 120

Chasdaï ben Shaprut, statesman, 82

Chasdaï Crescas, philosopher, 42, 93-94

Chassidism, a form of Kabbalistic Judaism, 46

_Chesed_, Kabbalistic term, 41

Children in the Talmud, 63-64

Chiya, rabbi, 19

Chiya bar Abba, Halachist, 21

Chmielnicki, Bogdan, and the Jews, 288

_Chochma_, Kabbalistic term, 41

_Chotham Tochnith_ by Abraham Bedersi, 171

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

Cicero and the drama, 232

Clement VI, pope, and Levi ben Gerson, 91

Cochin, the Ten Tribes in, 259

Cohen, friend of Heine, 350

Cohen, Abraham, Talmudist, 118

Cohen, Joseph, historian, 44

Coins, Polish, 286

Columbus, alluded to, 181 and Jews, 96

Comedy, nature of, 195-196

Commendoni, legate, on the Polish Jews, 287

"Commentaries on Aristotle" by Averroës, 163

"Commentary on Ecclesiastes" by Obadiah Sforno, 95

Commerce developed by Jews, 101-102

_Comte Lyonnais, Palanus_, romance, 90, 171

"Confessions" by Heine, quoted, 365-366

Conforte, David, historian, 43

_Consejos y Documentos al Rey Dom Pedro_ by Santob de Carrion, 173-174

_Consolaçam as Tribulações de Ysrael_ by Samuel Usque, 44

Constantine, translator, 81

"Contemplation of the World" by Yedaya Penini, 40

"Contributions to History and Literature" by Zunz, 337

Copernicus and Jewish astronomers, 86

Correa, Isabella, poetess, 129

Cota, da, Rodrigo, dramatist, 97, 235

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

"Court Secrets" by Rachel Ackermann, 119

Cousin, Victor, on Spinoza, 145

Creation, Maimonides' theory of, 160

Creed, the Jewish, by Maimonides, 151-152

Creizenach, Th. , poet, 49

Cromwell, Oliver, and Manasseh ben Israel, 99

_Dalalat al-Haïrin_, "Guide of the Perplexed, " 154

Damm, teacher of Mendelssohn, 299

"Dance of Death, " attributed to Santob, 174

Daniel, Immanuel Romi's guide in Paradise, 223

_Dansa General_, attributed to Santob, 174

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

Dante, the Hebrew, 124

"Dark Continent, The. " See Africa

David, philosopher, 83

David ben Levi, Talmudist, 46

David ben Yehuda, poet, 223

David d'Ascoli, physician, 97

David della Rocca, alluded to, 124

David de Pomis, physician, 45, 97

Davison, Bogumil, actor, 246

Deborah, as poetess, 106-107

_De Causis_, by David, 83

Decimal fractions first mentioned, 91

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

Delitzsch, Franz, quoted, 24

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

De Rossi, Hebrew scholar, 48

Deutsch, Caroline, poetess, 139, 142-143

Deutsch, Emanuel, on the Talmud, 68-70

_Deutsche Briefe_ by Zunz, 337

_Dialoghi di Amore_ by Judah Abrabanel, 42, 95

_Dichter und Kaufmann_ by Berthold Auerbach, 49

_Die Freimütigen_, Zunz contributor to, 330

_Die gottesdienstlichen Vorträge der Juden_ by Zunz, 48, 333-335

Diez, alluded to, 333

Dingelstedt, Franz, quoted, 319

Dioscorides, botanist, 82

_Disciplina clericalis_, a collection of tales, 89, 171

_Divina Commedia_, travestied, 35 imitated, 89, 124

_Doctor angelicus_, Thomas Aquinas, 94

_Doctor Perplexorum_, "Guide of the Perplexed, " 154, 155

Document hypothesis of the Old Testament, 13

Dolce, scholar and martyr, 119

Donnolo, Sabattaï, physician, 82

Dorothea of Kurland and Mendelssohn, 315

Dotina, friend of Henriette Herz, 313

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

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

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

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

Dubno, Solomon, commentator, 309

Dukes, L. , scholar, 49

Dunash ben Labrat, alluded to, 257

"Duties of the Heart" by Bechaï, 137

_Eben Bochan_, by Kalonymos ben Kalonymos, 216-219

Egidio de Viterbo, cardinal, 44

Eibeschütz, Jonathan, Talmudist, 47

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

Elias del Medigo, scholar, 44, 94

Elias Kapsali, scholar, 98

Elias Levita, grammarian, 44, 95

Elias Mizrachi, scholar, 98

Elias of Genzano, poet, 224

Elias Wilna, Talmudist, 46

Eliezer, rabbi, quoted, 253

Eliezer ha-Levi, Talmudist, 36

Eliezer of Metz, Talmudist, 36

El Muallima, Karaite, 117

_Em beyisrael_, Deborah, 107

Emden, Jacob, Talmudist, 47

Emin Pasha, alluded to, 250

"Enforced Apostasy, " by Maimonides, 152

Engel, friend of Henriette Herz, 313

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

Enriquez, Isabella, poetess, 130

_En-Sof_, Kabbalistic term, 40, 41

Ephraim, the Israelitish kingdom, 251

Ephraim, Veitel, financier, 304, 316

Erasmus, quoted, 44

_Esheth Lapidoth_, Deborah, 106

Eskeles, banker, alluded to, 305

Esterka, supposed mistress of Casimir the Great, 286

"Esther, " by Solomon Usque, 235

Esthori Hafarchi, topographer, 93

Ethiopia. See Abyssinia

Euchel, Isaac, Hebrew writer, 48, 309

Eupolemos, historian, 17

Euripides, alluded to, 230

Ewald, Bible critic, 14

"Exodus from Egypt, The" by Ezekielos, 230

Ezekiel, prophet, quoted, 252, 294-295

Ezekielos, dramatist, 17, 230

Ezra, alluded to, 253

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

Fagius, Paul, Hebrew scholar, 44, 95

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

Faust of Saragossa, Gabirol, 199

_Faust_ translated into Hebrew, 248

Felix, Rachel, actress, 246

Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain and Isaac Abrabanel, 99

Ferrara, duke of, candidate in Poland, 278

Figo, Azariah, rabbi, 45

Fischels, Rosa, translator of the Psalms, 120

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

"Flea Song" by Yehuda Charisi, 212

Fleck, actor, 311

Foa, Rebekah Eugenie, writer, 139

Folquet de Lunel, troubadour, 171-172

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

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

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

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

Fox fables translated, 79

Frank, Rabbi Dr. , alluded to, 345

Fränkel, David, teacher of Mendelssohn, 293

Frankel, Z, scholar, 49

Frankl, L. A. , poet, 49

Frank-Wolff, Ulla, writer, 139

Franzos, K. E. , Ghetto novelist, 50

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

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

Freidank, German author, 185

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

Fröhlich, Regina, writer, 131

Fürst, J. , scholar, 49

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

Gad, Esther, alluded to, 132

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

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

Gamaliel, rabbi, 18, 77, 81

Gans, David, historian, 47

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

Gaspar, Jewish pilot, 96

Gayo, Isaac, physician, 86

Geiger, Abraham, scholar, 49

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

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

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

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

Geldern, van, Simon, author, 341

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

Geometry in the Talmud, 77

German literature cultivated by Jews, 87

Gerson ben Solomon, scientist, 90

_Gesellschafter_, Zunz contributor to the, 330

_Ghedulla_, Kabbalistic term, 41

Ghemara, commentary on the Mishna, 60

Ghetto tales, 50

_Ghevoora_, Kabbalistic term, 41

Gideon, Jewish king in Abyssinia, 263

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

Glaser, Dr. Edward, on the Falashas, 263

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

Goldschmidt, Henriette, writer, 139

Goldschmidt, Johanna, writer, 139

Goldschmied, M. , Ghetto novelist, 50

Goldsmid, Anna Maria, writer, 137

Goldsmid, Isaac Lyon, alluded to, 137

Gottloeber, A. , dramatist, 248

Götz, Ella, translator, 120

Graetz, Heinrich, historian, 49 quoted, 185

Graziano, Lazaro, dramatist, 235

Greece and Judæa contrasted, 194

Grimani, Dominico, cardinal, alluded to, 95

Grimm, alluded to, 333

Guarini, dramatist, 239

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

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

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

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

Günsburg, C. , preacher, 322

Günsburg, Simon, confidant of Stephen Báthori, 287

"Gustavus Vasa" by Grace Aguilar, 134

Gutzkow, quoted, 306

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

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

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

Haï, Gaon, 22

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

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

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

Halley's comet and Rabbi Joshua, 77

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

Hamel, Glikel, historian, 120

Händele, daughter of Saul Wahl, 276

Hariri, Arabic poet, 32, 34 (note)

Haroun al Rashid, embassy to, 99

Hartmann, M. , poet, 49

Hartog, Marian, writer, 137

Hartung, actor, 248

_Ha-Sallach_, Moses ibn Ezra, 205

Hebrew drama, first, published, 237

Hebrew language, plasticity of, 32-33

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

Heckscher, Fromet, ancestress of Heine, 341

Hegel and Heine, 346

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

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

Heine, Maximilian, quoted, 344

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

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

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

Hellenism and Judaism, 75-76

Hellenists, Heine on, 359, 362

Hennings, alluded to, 314

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

Herder, poet, and Mendelssohn, 314 quoted, 296

Hermeneutics by Maimonides, 162-163

Herod and the stage, 230-231

Herrera, Abraham, Kabbalist, 99

Hertzveld, Estelle and Maria, writers, 140

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

Herz, Marcus, physicist, 310, 311

Herzberg-Fränkel, L. , Ghetto novelist, 50

Herzfeld, L. , scholar, 49

Hess, M. , quoted, 109

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

Higros the Levite, musician, 369, 374

Hildebold von Schwanegau, minnesinger, 182

Hillel, rabbi, 18 quoted, 255

Hillel ben Samuel, translator 86

Himyarites and Jews, 256

Hirsch, scholar, 49

Hirsch, Jenny, writer, 139

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

"History of Synagogue Poetry" by Zunz, 336

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

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

Hitzig, architect, alluded to, 298

Hitzig, Bible critic, 13, 14

_Hod_, Kabbalistic term, 41

Holbein, Hans, illustrates a Jewish book, 102

Holdheim, S. , scholar, 49

Holland, exiles in, 128-129

Homberg, Herz disciple of Mendelssohn, 48, 309

"Home Influence" by Grace Aguilar, 134

Hosea, king, alluded to, 250

Hosea, prophet, alluded to, 251 "Hours of Devotion" by Fanny Neuda, 140

Humanism and the Jews, 94-95

Humboldts, the, and Hennriette Herz, 311, 312, 313

Humor in antiquity, 191-192 in Jewish German literature, 225-226 nature of, 195-195, 356-357

Hurwitz, Bella, historian, 120

Hurwitz, Isaiah, Kabbalist, 43

Ibn Alfange, writer, 170

Ibn Chasdaï, Makamat writer, 35

Ibn Sina and Maimonides, 156

_Iggereth ha-Sh'mad_ by Maimonides, 152

_Ikkarim_ by Joseph Albo, 42

Ima Shalom, Talmudist, 113

Immanuel ben Solomon, poet, 35, 89, 90, 219-221, 222-223 and Dante, 35, 89, 220, 223 quoted, 220, 221, 222

Immanuel Romi. See Immanuel ben Solomon

India, the Ten Tribes in, 259

Indians and the Ten Tribes, 259

Innocent III, pope, alluded to, 184

Intelligences, Maimonides' doctrine of the, 159

"Interest and Usury" from the Haggada, 67-68

_Iris_, Zunz contributor to the, 330

Isaac Alfassi, alluded to, 257

Isaac ben Abraham, Talmudist, 36

Isaac ben Moses, Talmudist, 36

Isaac ben Sheshet, philosopher, 42

Isaac ben Yehuda ibn Ghayyat, poet, 201, 202

Isaac ibn Sid, astronomer, 92

Isaac Israeli, mathematician, 93

Isaac Israeli, physician, 81, 82, 257

Isaiah, prophet, quoted, 251, 252

Ishmael, poet, alluded to, 118

Israel, kingdom of, 250-251

"Israel Defended" translated by Grace Aguilar, 134

"Israelites on Mount Horeb, The, " by Simon van Geldern, 341

Isserles, Moses, Talmudist, 46, 100, 286

Italy, Jews of 45-46, 116

Itzig, Daniel, naturalization of, 317

Jabneh, academy at, 57, 227-228

Jacob ben Abba-Mari ben Anatoli, scholar, 39-40, 85

Jacob ben Elias, poet, 224

Jacob ben Machir, astronomer, 86

Jacob ben Meïr, Talmudist, 36

Jacob ben Nissim, alluded to, 257

Jacob ibn Chabib, Talmudist 43

Jason, writer, 17

Jayme, J, of Aragon, patron of Hebrew learning, 92

Jellinek, Adolf, preacher, 49 quoted, 33, 245-246

Jeremiah, prophet, quoted, 251

Jerusalem, friend of Moses Mendelssohn, 314

Jerusalem, Kabbalists in, 43

Jesus, mediator between Judaism and Hellenism, 76 quotes the Old Testament, 13

"Jewish Calderon, The, " Antonio Enriquez di Gomez, 236

Jewish drama, the first, 234

"Jewish Faith, The, " by Grace Aguilar, 135

Jewish German drama, the, 246-247

Jewish historical writings, lack of, 23-24

Jewish history, spirit of, 269-271

"Jewish Homiletics" by Zunz, 333-335

Jewish literature and Goethe, 103-104 characterized, 11-12 comprehensiveness of, 37 definition of, 328 extent of, 9-10, 22 Hellenic period of, 16-17 in Persia, 90 love in, 122-123 name of, 10 rabbinical period of, 38

Jewish philosophers, 17, 22, 23, 35, 40, 42

Jewish poetry, and Syrian, 80 future of, 50 subjects of, 24-25

Jewish poets, 49

Jewish race, the, liberality of, 33-34 morality of, 36 preservation of, 108-109 subjectivity of, 33, 353-354 versatility of, 79

Jewish scholars, 49

Jewish Sybil, the, 17-18

"Jewish Voltaire, The, " Immanuel Romi, 219

Jewish wit, 354-356

Jews, academies of, 75, 79 and Columbus, 96 and commerce, 101-102 and Frederick the Great, 316-317 and the invention of printing, 38 and the national poetry of Germany, 87 and the Renaissance, 43-44, 74-75, 94-95, 223, 224 and troubadour poetry, 171-173 and Vasco da Gama, 96-97 as diplomats, 98-99 as economists, 103 as interpreters of Aristotle, 85 as linguists, 75 as literary mediators, 97-98 as physicians, 19, 37, 44, 45, 81-82, 86, 95, 97 as scientific mediators, 78 as teachers of Christians, 95, 98 as traders, 74-75 as translators, 44, 79, 86-87, 88, 89, 90, 91-92 as travellers, 37-38 as wood engravers, 102 characterized by Heine, 362-363, 365-366 defended by Reuchlin, 95 in Arabia, 256-257 in Holland, 46 in Italy, 45-46, 116 in Poland, 46, 286-288 in the modern drama, 235-237, 245 in the sciences, 102 of Germany, in the middle ages, 186 of Germany, poverty of, 319 of the eighteenth century, 294 relation of, to Arabs, 22 under Arabic influences, 78, 80 under Hellenic influences, 76 under Roman influences, 76, 77

João II, of Portugal, employs Jewish scholars, 96

Jochanan, compiler of the Jerusalem Talmud, 19, 114

Jochanan ben Zakkaï, rabbi, 18, 56-57, 228

John of Seville, mathematician, 91

Josefowicz brothers in Lithuania, 287-288

Joseph ben Jochanan, wife of, 119

Joseph del Medigo, scholar, 45

Joseph Ezobi, poet, 89

Joseph ibn Aknin, disciple of Maimonides, 155

Joseph ibn Nagdela, wife of, 117

Joseph ibn Sabara, satirist, 34, 214

Joseph ibn Verga, historian, 42

Joseph ibn Zaddik, philosopher, 35

Josephus, Flavius, historian, 13, 18, 44 at Rome, 232 quoted, 230

Joshua, astronomer, 77

Joshua, Samaritan book of, on the Ten Tribes, 252

Joshua ben Chananya, rabbi, 18

Joshua, Jacob, Talmudist, 47

Jost, Isaac Marcus, historian, 49, 321 on Zunz, 320

"Journal for the Science of Judaism, " 324-325, 329, 352

Juan Alfonso de Bæna, poet, 90, 179

Judæa and Greece contrasted, 194

Judæo-Alexandrian period, 16-17

Judah Alfachar and Maimonides, 165

Judah Hakohen, astronomer, 93

Judah ibn Sabbataï, satirist, 34, 214

Judah ibn Tibbon, translator, 39, 84

Judah Tommo, poet, 224

Judaism and Hellenism, 75-76 served by women, 115-116

_Judendeutsch_, patois, 47, 294 literature in, 47, 100-101 philological value of, 100 used by women, 119

Judges, quoted, 107

Judith, queen of the Jewish kingdom in Abyssinia, 262, 263

Kabbala, the, attacked and defended, 45, 46 influence of, 93, 99 studied by Christians, 44 supposed author of, 19 system of, outlined, 40-41

Kabbalists, 43, 95, 99

_Kalâm_, Islam theology, 81

_Kalila we-Dimna_, fox fables, translated, 79

Kalir, Eliezer, poet, 25

"Kaliric, " classical in Jewish literature, 25

Kalisch, Ludwig, quoted, 364-365

Kalonymos ben Kalonymos as a satirist, 35, 216-219 as a scholar, 89

Kant and Maimonides, 146, 164 's philosophy among Jews, 310

Kara, Abigedor, Talmudist, 47

Karaite doctrines in Castile, 117

Karo, Joseph, compiler of the _Shulchan Aruch_, 43

Kasmune (Xemona), poetess, 24, 118

Kaspi, Joseph, philosopher, 42

Kayserling, M. , quoted, 300

Kepler and Jewish astronomers, 91, 92

_Kether_, Kabbalistic term, 41

Kimchi, David, grammarian, 39, 84

"King Solomon's Seal" by Büschenthal, 245

Kisch, teacher of Moses Mendelssohn, 297

_Klesmer_, musician, 377

Kley, Edward, preacher, 49, 322

Kohen, Sabbataï, Talmudist, 46

Kompert, Leopold, Ghetto novelist, 50

Korbi, character in "The Gift of Judah, " 214

Krochmal, scholar, 49

Kuh, M. E. , poet, 49

Kulke, Ghetto novelist, 50

Kunth, tutor of the Humboldts, 311

_La Doctrina Christiana_, attributed to Santob, 174

La Fontaine, and Hebrew fable translations, 34, 88

Landau, Ezekiel, Talmudist, 47

Laura (Petrarch's) in "Praise of Women, " 223

_Layesharim Tehillah_ by Luzzatto, 240-241

"Lay of Zion" by Yehuda Halevi, 28-31, 210

Lazarus ben David, philosopher, 310, 350

Lazarus, Emma, poetess, 140

Lazarus, M. , scholar, 49

_Lecho Dodi_, Sabbath song, 43

Legend-making, 288-289

Legends, value of, 289-292

Lehmann, M. , Ghetto novelist, 50

Leibnitz and Maimonides, 146

_Leibzoll_, tax, 294

Lemech, sons of, inventions of, 372

Leo de Modena, rabbi, 45, 128

Leo Hebræus. See Judah Abrabanel

Leon di Bannolas. See Levi ben Gerson

Lessing, alluded to, 246 and Mendelssohn, 299, 300, 314 as fabulist, 88 on Yedaya Penini, 40

Letteris, M. E. , dramatist, 248

"Letters to a Christian Friend on the Fundamental Truths of Judaism, " by Clementine Rothschild, 141

Levi ben Abraham, philosopher, 40

Levi ben Gerson, philosopher, 42, 90-91

Levi (Henle), Elise, writer, 139

Levi of Mayence, founder of German synagogue music, 376

Levin (Varnhagen), Rahel, alluded to, 131, 346 and Judaism, 132 and the emancipation movement, 132-133

Levita, Elias. See Elias Levita

Lewandowski, musician, work of, 370-371, 377-378

"Light of God" by Chasdaï Crescas, 42

Lindo, Abigail, writer, 137

Lithuania, Jews in, 282, 285

Litte of Ratisbon, historian, 119

_Litteraturbriefe_ by Mendelssohn, 301

_Litteraturgeschichte der synagogalen Poesie_ by Zunz, 336

Lokman's fables translated into Hebrew, 34

Lonsano, Menahem, writer on music, 376

Lope de Vega, alluded to, 239

Love in Hebrew poetry, 122-123, 225

Love in Jewish and German poetry, 186

Lucian, alluded to, 18

"Lucinde" by Friedrich von Schlegel, 306

Luis de Torres accompanies Columbus, 96

Luria, Solomon, Talmudist, 46, 286

Luther, Martin, and Rashi, 84 quoted, 377 under Jewish influences, 98

Luzzatto, Moses Chayyim, dramatist, 45, 239-241

Luzzatto, S. D. , scholar, 49, 137

Maffei, dramatist, 240

_Maggidim_, itinerant preachers, 227

"Magic Flute, The, " first performance of, 247-248

"Magic Wreath, The, " by Grace Aguilar, 134

Maharil, founder of German synagogue music, 376

Maimon, Solomon, and Mendelssohn, 310

Maimonides, Moses, philosopher, 34, 35, 84 and Aristotle, 156 and Averroës, 163-164 and Ibn Sina, 156 and modern philosophy, 164 and scholasticism, 85, 156, 164 as astronomer, 93 career of, 147-150 in France, 145-146 medical works of, 153-154 on man's attributes, 160-161 on prophecy, 161-162 on resurrection, 164-165 on revelation, 162 on the attributes of God, 157-158 on the Mosaic legislation, 163 philosophic work of, 154 ff. Quoted, 152, 167 religious works of, 150-153

Maimunists, 39-40

Makamat, a form of Arabic poetry, 34 (note)

Malabar, the Ten Tribes in, 259

_Malchuth_, Kabbalistic term, 41

Manasseh ben Israel, author, 47, 99-100 and Rembrandt, 102 on the Ten Tribes, 259

Manesse, Rüdiger, compiler, 183-184

Mannheimer, N. , preacher, 49

Manoello. See Immanuel ben Solomon

Mantino, Jacob, physician, 95

Manuel, of Portugal, alluded to, 97

Margoles, Jacob, Kabbalist, 95

Maria de Padilla, mistress of Pedro I, 169

Marie de France, fabulist, 88

Mar Sutra on the Ten Tribes, 253

_Mashal_, parable, 227

_Massichtoth_, Talmudic treatises, 59

_Mauscheln_, Jewish slang, 310-311

Maximilian, of Austria, candidate for the Polish crown, 278

_Mechabberoth_ by Immanuel Romi, 219-220

Medicine, origin of, 81

Meier, Ernest, Bible critic, 12 quoted, 14

Meïr, rabbi, fabulist, 19, 111-112

Meïr ben Baruch, Talmudist, 36

Meïr ben Todros ha-Levi, quoted, 164-165

Meissner, Alfred, recollections of, of Heine, 362-364

_Mekirath Yoseph_ by Beermann, 241-244

Melo, David Abenator, translator, 47

_Mendel Gibbor_, quoted, 272

Mendels, Edel, historian, 120

Mendelssohn, Abraham, son of Moses Mendelssohn, 307, 308

Mendelssohn, Dorothea, daughter of Moses Mendelssohn, 131, 305-306

Mendelssohn, Henriette, daughter of Moses Mendelssohn, 306-308

Mendelssohn, Joseph, son of Moses Mendelssohn, 305, 307

Mendelssohn, Moses, philosopher, 48 and Lessing, 299, 300, 314 and Maimonides, 164 as critic, 301-302 as reformer, 316 as translator, 40 children of, 304 disciples of, 309 friends of, 299, 314-315 in Berlin, 293, 296 ff marriage of, 303-304 quoted, 300, 301

Mendelssohn, Nathan, son of Moses Mendelssohn, 307

Mendelssohn, Recha, daughter of Moses Mendelssohn, 307

Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Felix, 307, 308

Mendez, David Franco, dramatist, 244

_Meneketh Ribka_, by Rebekah Tiktiner, 119

Menelek, son of the Queen of Sheba, 262

_Merope_ by Maffei, 240

_Mesgid_, Falasha synagogue, 265

Mesopotamia, the Ten Tribes in, 259

Messer Leon, poet, 223

Meyer, Marianne, alluded to, 132

Meyer, Rachel, writer, 139

Meyer, Sarah, alluded to, 132

Meyerbeer, alluded to, 245

Midrash, commentary, 20, 53-54

Midrash Rabba, a Talmudic work, 21

_Migdal Oz_ by Luzzatto, 239

_Minchath Yehuda Soneh ha-Nashim_, by Judah ibn Sabbataï, 214-216

_Minnedienst_ absent from Jewish poetry, 122

Minnesingers, 182

Miriam, as poetess, 106

Miriam, Rashi's granddaughter, 118

_Mishlé Sandabar_, romance, 88

Mishna, the, commentary on, 60 compilation of, 58 in poetry, 201

_Mishneh Torah_ by Maimonides, 152-153

Missionaries in Abyssinia, 263-267

Mohammedanism, rise of, 77-78

Montefiore, Charlotte, writer, 133

Montefiore, Judith, philanthropist, 133

Montpellier, "Guide of the Perplexed" burnt at, 155 Jews at academy of, 86, 92

_Moreh Nebuchim_ by Maimonides, 146, 154, 161-162

Morgenstern, Lina, writer, 139

_Morgenstunden_ by Mendelssohn, 305

Moritz, friend of Henriette Herz, 313, 314

Morpurgo, Rachel, poetess, 137-138

Mosaic legislation, the, Maimonides on, 163

"Mosaic" style in Hebrew poetry, 201-202

Mosenthal, S. H. , Ghetto novelist, 49, 50 Dingelstedt on, 319

Moser, Moses, friend of Heine, 324, 346 letters to, 350, 352

Moses, prophet, characterized by Heine, 365-366 in Africa, 255

Moses de Coucy, Talmudist, 36

Moses ibn Ezra, poet, 24, 32, 202-206, 207

Moses, Israel, teacher of Mendelssohn, 297-298

Moses of Narbonne, philosopher, 42

Moses Rieti, the Hebrew Dante, 35, 124

Moses Sephardi. See Petrus Alphonsus

Mosessohn, Miriam, writer, 138

Munk, Solomon, scholar, 49 and Gabirol, 26, 83 translates _Moreh Nebuchim_, 146, 155

Münster, Sebastian, Hebrew scholar, 44, 95

Muscato, Judah, preacher, 376

Music among Jews, 372-376

Mussafia, Benjamin, author, 47

Nachmanides, exegete, 39

Nagara, Israel, poet, 43

"Names of the Jews, The, " by Zunz, 335

Nasi, Joseph, statesman, 99 and the Polish election, 287

"Nathan the Wise" and tolerance, 185, 310-311

Nazarenes, defined by Heine, 359

_Nefesh_, Kabbalistic term, 41

_Neïlah_ prayer, A, 104

Neo-Hebraic literature. See Jewish literature

Nero, alluded to, 232

_Neshama_, Kabbalistic term, 41

_Nesirim_, Falasha monks, 265

Nestorians and the Ten Tribes, 259

Neto, David, philosopher, 47

Neuda, Fanny, writer, 140

Neunzig, Joseph, on Heine, 343

"New Song, " anonymous poem, 224

_Nezach_, Kabbalistic term, 41

Nicolai, friend of Mendelssohn, 299, 300, 313, 314

Nicolas de Lyra, exegete, 84

Noah, Mordecai, and the Ten Tribes, 259

Nöldeke, Theodor, Bible critic, 12

_Nomologia_, by Isaac Aboab, 45

Numbers, book of, quoted, 71

Nunes, Manuela, de Almeida, poetess, 130

Obadiah Bertinoro, Talmudist, 43

Obadiah Sforno, teacher of Reuchlin, 95

Offenbach, J. , alluded to, 245

Old Testament, the, Africa in, 255 document hypothesis of, 13 humor in, 191, 193 in poetry, 201 interpretation of, 54 literary value of, 14-16, 73-74 quoted by Jesus, 13 study of, 12-13, 18 time of compilation of, 16 time of composition of, 13-14 translations of, 16, 47, 48, 80

Oliver y Fullano, de, Nicolas, author, 129

"On Rabbinical Literature" by Zunz, 328

_Ophir_, Hebrew name for Africa, 255

Ophra in Yehuda Halevi's poems, 207

Oppenheim, David, rabbi at Prague, 244

Ormus, island, explored by Jews, 96

Ottenheimer, Henriette, poetess, 49, 138-139

Otto von Botenlaube, minnesinger, 182

Owl, character in "The Gift of Judah, " 214

Padua, University of, and Elias del Medigo, 94

Palestine described, 93

Palquera, Shemtob, philosopher, 40

Pan, Taube, poetess, 120

"Paradise, The" by Moses Rieti, 35

Parallax computed by Isaac Israeli, 93

_Parzival_, by Wolfram von Eschenbach, 185 Jewish contributions to, 35, 87

_Pastor Fido_ by Guarini, 129, 240

Paul III, pope, alluded to, 95

Paula deï Mansi, Talmudist, 116-117

Pedro I, of Castile, and Santob de Carrion, 87, 169, 170

Pedro di Carvallho, navigator, 96

Pekah, king, alluded to, 250

Pensa, Joseph, de la Vega, dramatist, 237-238

Pentateuch, the Jewish German translation of, 100 Mendelssohn's commentary on, 309

_Peregrinatio Hierosolymitana_ by Radziwill, 280

Persia, Jewish literature in, 90

Pesikta, a Talmudic work, 21

Petachya of Ratisbon, traveller, 37, 117

Petrarch, translated into Spanish, 98

Petrus Alphonsus, writer, 89, 171

Peurbach, humanist, 100

Philipson, L. , journalist, 49

Philo, philosopher, 17

Philo the Elder, writer, 17

Phokylides (pseudo-), Neoplatonist, 17

Physicians, Jewish, 81, 95, 97, 179

Pickelhering, a character in _Mekirath Yoseph_, 241

Pico della Mirandola alluded to, 94 and Levi ben Gerson, 91 and the Kabbala, 44

_Pilpul_, Talmudic method, 46

Pinchas, rabbi, chronicler of the Saul Wahl story, 273, 277, 280

_Piut_, a form of liturgic Hebrew poetry, 24, 198

"Plant Lore" by Dioscorides, 82

Pliny, alluded to, 250

Pnie, Samson, contributes to _Parzival_, 35, 87

_Poésies diverses_ by Frederick the Great, 301

Poland, election of king in, 278-279 Jews in, 286-288

Pollak, Jacob, Talmudist, 46

Popert, Meyer Samson, ancestor of Heine, 341

Popiel, of Poland, alluded to, 285

Poppæa, empress, alluded to, 232

"Praise of Women, " anonymous work, 34

"Praise of Women, " by David ben Yehuda, 223

"Praise unto the Righteous, " by Luzzatto, 240-241

"Prince and the Dervish, The, " by Ibn Chasdaï, 35

Printing, influence of, on Jewish literature, 94

"Prisoners of Hope, The, " by Joseph Pensa, 237-238

Prophecy defined by Maimonides, 161-162

Proudhon anticipated by Judah ibn Tibbon, 39

Psalm cxxxiii. , 71-72

Psalms, the, translated into Jewish German, 120 into Persian, 90

Ptolemy Philadelphus and the Septuagint, 16

Ptolemy's "Almagest" translated, 79

Rab, rabbi, 19

Rabbinical literature. See Jewish literature

Rabbinowicz, Bertha, 138

_Rabbi von Bacharach_ by Heine, 50, 348, 349

Rachel (Bellejeune), Talmudist, 118

Radziwill, Nicholas Christopher, and Saul Wahl, 274-276, 279-280

"Radziwill Bible, The, " 280

Rambam, Jewish name for Maimonides, 146

Ramler and Jews, 311, 313

Rappaport, Moritz, poet, 49

Rappaport, S. , scholar, 49

Rashi. See Solomon ben Isaac

Rausnitz, Rachel, historian, 121

Ravenna and Jewish financiers, 101-102

"Recapitulation of the Law" by Maimonides, 152-153

Recke, von der, Elise, and Mendelssohn, 215

Red Sea, coasts of, explored by Jews, 96

Reichardt, musician, 313

Reinmar von Brennenberg, minnesinger, 182

_Reisebilder_ by Heine, 353

Rembrandt illustrates a Jewish book, 102

Renaissance, the, and the Jews, 43-44, 74-75, 94-95, 223, 224

Renaissance, the Jewish, 101, 227, 293-295

Renan, Ernest, alluded to, 163, 191

_Respublika Babinska_, a Polish society, 281-282

_Respuestas_ by Antonio di Montoro, 180

Resurrection, Maimonides on, 164-165

Reuchlin, John, and Jewish scholars, 91, 94-95 and the Talmud, 44 quoted, 89

Revelation defined by Maimonides, 162

Richard I, of England, and Maimonides, 149

Riemer quoted, 358

Riesser, Gabriel, journalist, 49, 291

"Righteous Brethren, The" an Arabic order, 79

Rintelsohn, teacher of Heine, 344

Ritter, Heinrich, on Maimonides, 146

"Ritual of the Synagogue, The, " by Zunz, 336

_Ritus des synagogalen Gottesdienstes_ by Zunz, 336

Robert of Anjou, patron of Hebrew learning, 92

Robert of Naples, patron of Hebrew learning, 89

Rodenberg, Julius, quoted, 144

Romanelli, Samuel L. , dramatist, 244, 248

_Romanzero_ by Heine, 9, 27, 365

Rossi, Solomon, musician, 376

Rothschild, Anna, historian, 142 Charlotte, philanthropist, 141 Clementine, writer, 141-142 Constance, historian, 142

Rothschild family, women of the, 140-142

_Ruach_, Kabbalistic term, 41

Rückert, poet, alluded to, 139

"Rules for the Shoeing and Care of Horses in Royal Stables, " translated, 91

Rüppell, explorer, quoted, 263

Sa'adia, philosopher, 22, 80-81

Sachs, M. , scholar, 49

Saisset, E. , on Maimonides, 146

"Sale of Joseph, The" by Beermann, 241-244

Salerno, Jews at academy of, 86, 92

Salomon, Annette, writer, 137

Salomon, G. , preacher, 49

Salomon, Leah, wife of Abraham Mendelssohn, 308

_Salon_, the German, established by Jews, 312

Salonica, Spanish exiles in, 43

Sambation, fabled stream, 249, 258

Samson, history of, dramatized, 236 humor in the, 191, 192

"Samson and the Philistines" by Luzzatto, 239

"Samsonschool" at Wolfenbüttel, 321

Samuel, astronomer, 76

Samuel, physician, 19

Samuel ben Ali, Talmudist, 117

Samuel ben Meïr, exegete, 36, 172

Samuel ibn Nagdela, grand vizir, 98

Samuel Judah, father of Saul Wahl, 273, 274

Samuel the Pious, hymnologist, 36

Santillana, de, on Santob de Carrion, 173

Santo. See Santob de Carrion

Santob de Carrion, troubadour, 34, 87, 169-170, 174-175, 188 characterized, 173 character of, 178 quoted, 169, 175-176, 177-178 relation of, to Judaism, 176-177

Saphir, M. G. , quoted, 355

Sarah, a character in _Rabbi von Bacharach_, 348

Sarastro, played by a Jew, 247

Satirists, 213-223

Saul Juditsch. See Saul Wahl

Saul Wahl, in the Russian archives, 282-284 relics of, 278 story of, 273-277 why so named, 276

Savasorda. See Abraham ben Chiya

Schadow, sculptor, 313

Schallmeier, teacher of Heine, 342

Schlegel, von, Friedrich, husband of Dorothea Mendelssohn, 306

Schleiden, M. J. , quoted, 28, 74-75

Schleiermacher and the Jews, 313, 314, 323

Schopenhauer, Arthur, anticipated by Gabirol, 27 on Heine, 357-358

_Schutzjude_, a privileged Jew, 302-403

Scotists and Gabirol, 26

Scotus, Duns, philosopher, 82

Scotus, Michael, scholar, 40, 85

Scribes, the compilers of the Old Testament, 16

"Seal of Perfection, The, " by Abraham Bedersi, 171

_Sechel Hapoel_, Active Intellect, 159

_Seder_ described by Heine, 345

_Sefer Asaf_, medical fragment, 81

_Sefer ha-Hechal_ by Moses Rieti, 124

_Sefer Sha'ashuim_ by Joseph ibn Sabara, 214

_Sefiroth_, Kabbalistic term, 41

Selicha, a character in "The Sale of Joseph, " 241

_Selicha_, a form of Hebrew liturgical poetry, 24, 25, 198

Septuagint, contents of the, 16

Serach, hero of "The Gift of Judah, " 214-216

"Seven Wise Masters, The, " romance, 88

Seynensis, Henricus, quoted, 52

Shachna, Solomon, Talmudist, alluded to, 286

_Shalet_, a Jewish dish, 360-361

Shalmaneser, conquers Israel, 250 obelisk of, 261

Shammaï, rabbi, 18

Shapiro, Miriam, Talmudist, 117

_Shebach Nashim_ by David ben Yehuda, 223

Shem-Tob. See Santob de Carrion

Sherira, Talmudist, 22

"Shields of Heroes, " by Jacob ben Elias, 224

"Shulammith, " Jewish German drama, 247

_Shulchan Aruch_, code, 43

Sigismund I, Jews under, 285, 286

Sigismund III, and Saul Wahl, 283-284

Simon ben Yochaï, supposed author of the Kabbala, 19

Sirkes, Joel, Talmudist, 46

"Society for Jewish Culture and Science, " in Berlin, 324, 346

_Soferim_, Scribes, 56

Solomon, king, alluded to, 250 and Africa, 255

Solomon Ashkenazi, diplomat, 96, 286-287

Solomon ben Aderet, Talmudist, 40

Solomon ben Isaac (Rashi), exegete, 36, 84, 137 essay on, by Zunz, 329 family of, 118

Solomon ben Sakbel, satirist, 34, 213

Solomon Yitschaki. See Solomon ben Isaac

"Song of Joy" by Yehuda Halevi, 207

"Song of Songs, " a dramatic idyl, 229 alluded to, 207 characterized, 192-193 epitomized, 223 explained, 172 in later poetry, 202 quoted, 186

Sonnenthal, Adolf, actor, 246

Soudan, the, Moses in, 255

"Source of Life, The" by Gabirol, 82-83

"South, the, " Talmud name for Africa, 255

Spalding, friend of Henriette Herz, 313

"Spener's Journal, " Zunz editor of, 330

Spinoza, Benedict (Baruch), philosopher, 47, 100 and Maimonides, 145, 146, 164 influenced by Chasdaï Crescas, 94 under Kabbalistic influence, 99

"Spirit of Judaism, The, " by Grace Aguilar, 134

Stein, L. , poet, 49

Steinheim, scholar, 49

Steinschneider, M. , scholar, 37, 49

Steinthal, H. , scholar, 49

Stephen Báthori, of Poland, 278, 282, 287

_Studie zur Bibelkritik_ by Zunz, 337

Sullam, Sara Copia, poetess, 44, 124-128

Surrenhuys, scholar, 48

Süsskind von Trimberg, minnesinger, 35, 87, 182, 184 and Judaism, 187 character of, 188 poetry of, 185-186 quoted, 182-183, 187-188, 188-189

_Synagogale Poesie des Mittelalters_, by Zunz, 335

"Synagogue Poetry of the Middle Ages" by Zunz, 336

Syria, the Ten Tribes in, 259

Syrian and Jewish poetry, 80

Syrian Christians as scientific mediators, 78

_Tachkemoni_ by Yehuda Charisi, 211

Talmud, the, burnt, 40, 44 character of, 52-53 compilers of, 56, 57-58 composition of, 16 contents of, 59-60, 68-70, 76-77 in poetry, 201 on Africa, 254 on the Ten Tribes, 253 origin of, 53-54 study of, 17-18 translations of, 60 woman in, 110-114 women and children in, 63-64

Talmud, the Babylonian, 54 compiler of, 17

Talmud, the Jerusalem, compiler of, 17

Talmudists, 22, 36, 40, 43, 46, 47, 117, 286

Talmudists (women), 116, 117, 118

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

_Tanaïm_, Learners, 56, 57

Tanchuma, a Talmudic work, 19

Targum, the, in poetry, 201

Telescope, the, used by Gamaliel, 77

Teller, friend of Henriette Herz, 313

Ten Tribes, the, English views of, 260-262 Irish legend of, 261 the prophets on, 251-252 the Samaritan Hexateuch on, 252 the supposed homes of, 256-262 the Talmud on, 253

Tertullian quoted, 233

Theatre, the, and the rabbis, 230-234

Theodore, Negus of Abyssinia, 263, 267

_Theorica_ by Peurbach, 100

Thomists and Gabirol, 24

"Thoughts suggested by Bible Texts" by Louise Rothschild, 141

_Tifereth_, Kabbalistic term, 41

Tiglath-Pileser conquers Israel, 250

Tiktiner, Rebekah, scholar, 119

"Till Eulenspiegel, " the Jewish German, 101

Tolerance in Germany, 185, 189

"Touchstone" by Kalonymos ben Kalonymos, 33, 216-219

"Tower of Victory" by Luzzatto, 239

Tragedy, nature of, 195

Travellers, Jewish, 80

"Tristan and Isolde" compared with the _Mechabberoth_, 220

Troubadour poetry and the Jews, 171-173

Troubadours, 223

"Truth's Campaign, " anonymous work, 32

Turkey, Jews in, 98

"Two Tables of the Testimony, The, " by Isaiah Hurwitz, 43

Tycho de Brahe and Jewish astronomers, 92

Uhden, von, and Mendelssohn, 302

Uhland, poet, alluded to, 139

Ulla, itinerant preacher, 114

"Upon the Philosophy of Maimonides, " prize essay, 145

Usque, Samuel, poet, 44

Usque, Solomon, poet, 98, 235

"Vale of Weeping, The, " by Joseph Cohen, 44

Varnhagen, Rahel. See Levin, Rahel

Varnhagen von Ense, German _littérateur_, 312

Vecinho, Joseph, astronomer, 96

Veit, Philip, painter, 308

Veit, Simon, husband of Dorothea Mendelssohn, 306

Venino, alluded to, 302

Venus of Milo and Heine, 362

Vespasian and Jochanan ben Zakkaï, 57

Walther von der Vogelweide, minnesinger, 182, 189

Wandering Jew, the, myth of, 350

"War of Wealth and Wisdom, The, " satire, 34

"Water Song" by Gabirol, 200-201

Weil, Jacob, Talmudist, 102

Weill, Alexander, and Heine, 363-364

_Weltschmerz_ in Gabirol's poetry, 199 in Heine's poetry, 357

Wesseli, musician, 313

Wessely, Naphtali Hartwig, commentator, 48, 309

Wieland, poet, alluded to, 314

Wihl, poet, 49

Wine, creation of, 197-198

Withold, grandduke, and the Lithuanian Jews, 282, 284

Wohllerner, Yenta, poetess, 138

Wohlwill, Immanuel, friend of Zunz, letter to, 325

Wolfenbüttel, Jews' free school at, 320-321

Wolff, Hebrew scholar, 48

Wolfram von Eschenbach, minnesinger, 182, 185, 189

Woman, creation of, 197 in Jewish annals, 110 in literature, 106-107 in the Talmud, 64, 110-114 mental characteristics of, 121-122 satirized and defended, 223-224 services of, to Judaism, 115-116

"Woman's Friend" by Yedaya Penini, 216

Women, Jewish, in the emancipation movement, 133, 139

"Women of Israel, The" by Grace Aguilar, 134

"Women's Shield, " by Judah Tommo, 224

"World as Will and Idea, The, " by Schopenhauer, 357

Xemona. See Kasmune

Yaltha, wife of Rabbi Nachman, 113-114

Yechiel ben Abraham, financier, 99

Yechiel deï Mansi, alluded to, 116

Yedaya Penini, poet, 40, 216

Yehuda ben Astruc, scientist, 92

Yehuda ben Zakkaï quoted, 68

Yehuda Charisi, poet, 32, 34 (note), 210-213 on Gabirol, 27 quoted, 214 traveller, 37

Yehuda Chayyug, alluded to, 257

Yehuda Hakohen, Talmudist, 36

Yehuda Halevi, as philosopher, 31, 34 as poet, 24, 27-28, 206-210 daughter of, 117

Yehuda Romano, translator, 90

Yehuda Sabbataï, satirist, 34, 214

Yehuda the Prince, Mishna compiler, 19, 58 lament over, 65-66

Yemen, Judaism in, 256

_Yesod_, Kabbalistic term, 41

_Yesod Olam_ by Moses Zacuto, 238-239

_Yezira_, Kabbalistic term, 41

"Yosippon, " an historical compilation, 120, 249, 250, 321

Yucatan and the Ten Tribes, 259

Zacuto, Abraham, astronomer, 42, 96-97

Zacuto, Moses, dramatist, 238-239

Zarzal, Moses, physician, 179

_Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, Zunz contributor to, 337

Zeltner, J. G. , on Rebekah Tiktiner, 119

Zerubbabel, alluded to, 253

Zohar, the, astronomy in, 91 authorship of, 39

Zöllner, friend of Henriette Herz, 313

Zunz, Adelheid, wife of Leopold Zunz, 337, 352

Zunz, Leopold, scholar, 25, 48 and religious reform, 335 as journalist, 330 as pedagogue, 324 as politician, 330-332 as preacher, 322-323 characterized by Heine, 327-328 described by Jost, 320 education of, 320-322 friend of Heine, 346 importance of, for Judaism, 338 in Berlin, 318-319 quoted, 11-12, 119, 323, 325-327, 330, 331, 332, 334, 336, 371 style of, 338

"Zur Geschichte und Litteratur" by Zunz, 337

 * * * * *

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With Three Maps, a Frontispiece and Chronological Tables, BY LADY MAGNUS. 

REVISED BY M. FRIEDLÄNDER, PH. D. 

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The entire work is one of great interest; it is written with moderation, and yet with a fine enthusiasm for the great race which is set beforethe reader's mind. --_Atlantic Monthly. _

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A succinct, well-written history of a wonderful race. --_BuffaloCourier. _

The best hand-book of Jewish history that readers of any class canfind. --_New York Herald. _

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The work is an admirable one, and as a manual of Jewish history, it maybe commended to persons of every race and creed. --_Philadelphia Times. _

Altogether it would be difficult to find another book on this subjectcontaining so much information. --_American_ (Philadelphia). 

Lady Magnus' book is a valuable addition to the store-house ofliterature that we already have about the Jews. --_Charleston (S. C. )News. _

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"THINK AND THANK. "

A Tale for the Young, Narrating in Romantic Form the Boyhood of SirMoses Montefiore. 

WITH SIX ILLUSTRATIONS. 

BY SAMUEL W. COOPER. 

=OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. =

A graphic and interesting story, full of incident and adventure, with anadmirable spirit attending it consonant with the kindly and sweet, though courageous and energetic temper of the distinguishedphilanthropist. --_American_ (Philadelphia). 

THINK AND THANK is a most useful corrective to race prejudice. It isalso deeply interesting as a biographical sketch of a distinguishedEnglishman. --_Philadelphia Ledger. _

A fine book for boys of any class to read. --_Public Opinion_(Washington). 

It will have especial interest for the boys of his race, but allschool-boys can well afford to read it and profit by it. --_AlbanyEvening Journal. _

Told simply and well. --_New York Sun. _

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The old as well as the young may learn a lesson from it. --_JewishExponent. _

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The book is written in a plain, simple style, and is well adapted forSunday School libraries. --_Jewish Spectator. _

It is one of the very few books in the English language which can beplaced in the hands of a Jewish boy with the assurance of arousing andmaintaining his interest. --_Hebrew Journal. _

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THINK AND THANK will please boys, and it will be found popular in SundaySchool libraries. --_New York Herald. _

The story is a beautiful one, and gives a clear insight into thecircumstances, the training and the motives that gave impulse and energyto the life-work of the great philanthropist. --_Kansas City Times. _

We should be glad to know that this little book has a large circulationamong Gentiles as well as among the "chosen people. " It has no trace ofreligious bigotry about it, and its perusal cannot but serve to makeChristian and Jew better known to each other. --_Philadelphia Telegraph. _

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=OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. =

The author has attempted to depict faithfully the customs and practicesof the Russian people and government in connection with the Jewishpopulation of that country. The book is a strong and well-written story. We read and suffer with the sufferers. --_Public Opinion_ (Washington). 

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RABBI AND PRIEST has genuine worth, and is entitled to a rank among theforemost of its class. --_Minneapolis Tribune. _

The writer tells his story from the Jewish standpoint, and tells itwell. --_St. Louis Republic. _

The descriptions of life in Russia are vivid and add greatly to thecharm of the book. --_Buffalo Courier. _

A very thrilling story. --_Charleston (S. C. ) News. _

Very like the horrid tales that come from unhappy Russia. --_New OrleansPicayune. _

The situations are dramatic; the dialogue is spirited. --_JewishMessenger. _

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RABBI AND PRIEST will appeal to the sympathy of every reader in itstouching simplicity and truthfulness. --_Jewish Spectator. _

Bound in Cloth. Price, postpaid, $1. 

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The pamphlet is full of facts, and will inform people very fully inregard to the basis of the complaints made by Jews against Russia. Wehope it will be very widely circulated. --_Public Opinion_ (Washington). 

The laws and regulations governing Jews in Russia, subjecting them tosevere oppression, grievous restrictions and systematic persecution, arestated in condensed form with precise references, bespeaking exactnessin compilation and in presenting the case of these unfortunatepeople. --_Galveston News. _

This pamphlet supplies information that is much in demand, and whichought to be generally known in enlightened countries. --_CincinnatiCommercial Gazette. _

Considering the present agitation upon the subject it is a very timelypublication. --_New Orleans Picayune. _

It is undoubtedly the most compact and thorough presentation of theRusso-Jewish question. --_American Israelite. _

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=OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. =

A series of nine well-written short stories based upon love andreligion, which make quite interesting reading. --_Burlington Hawkeye. _

A pamphlet containing several sketches full of high moral principle, andof quite interesting developments of simple human emergencies. --_PublicOpinion_ (Washington, D. C. )

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In addition to being interesting, is written with a purpose, and carrieswith it a wholesome lesson. --_San Francisco Call. _

This is a collection of brief stories of Jewish life, some of which areof great interest, while all are well written. --_Charleston (S. C. ) Newsand Courier. _

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CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO

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The art of a Hogarth or a Cruikshank could not have made types ofcharacter stand out with greater force or in bolder relief than has thepen of this author. --_Philadelphia Record. _

It is one of the best pictures of Jewish life and thought that we haveseen since the publication of "Daniel Deronda. "--London _Pall MallGazette_. 

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A strong and remarkable book. It is not easy to find a parallel to it. We do not know of any other novel which deals so fully and soauthoritatively with Judæa in modern London. --_Speaker, London. _

Among the notable productions of the time. . . . All that is here portrayedis unquestionable truth. --_Jewish Exponent. _

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Henry Zirndorf ranks high as a student, thinker and writer, and thislittle book will go far to encourage the study of Hebrewliterature. --_Denver Republican. _

The book is gracefully written, and has many strong touches ofcharacterizations. --_Toledo Blade. _

The sketches are based upon available history and are written in clearnarrative style. --_Galveston News. _

Henry Zirndorf has done a piece of work of much literary excellence in"SOME JEWISH WOMEN. "--S_t. Louis Post-Dispatch. _

It is an attractive book in appearance and full of curious biographicalresearch. --_Baltimore Sun. _

The writer shows careful research and conscientiousness in making hisnarratives historically correct and in giving to each heroine her justdue. --_American Israelite_ (Cincinnati). 

Bound in Cloth, Ornamental, Gilt Top. Price, postpaid, $1. 25. 

HISTORY OF THE JEWS

BY

PROFESSOR H. GRAETZ

Vol. I. From the Earliest Period to the Death of Simon the Maccabee (135B. C. E. ). 

Vol. II. From the Reign of Hyrcanus to the Completion of the BabylonianTalmud (500 C. E. ). 

Vol. III. From the Completion of the Babylonian Talmud to the Banishmentof the Jews from England (1290 C. E. ). 

Vol. IV. From the Rise of the Kabbala (1270 C. E. ) to the PermanentSettlement of the Marranos in Holland (1618 C. E. ). 

Vol. V. In preparation. 

=OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. =

Professor Graetz's History is universally accepted as a conscientiousand reliable contribution to religious literature. --_PhiladelphiaTelegraph. _

Aside from his value as a historian, he makes his pages charming by allthe little side-lights and illustrations which only come at the beck ofgenius. --_Chicago Inter-Ocean. _

The writer, who is considered by far the greatest of Jewish historians, is the pioneer in his field of work--history without theology orpolemics. . . . His monumental work promises to be the standard by whichall other Jewish histories are to be measured by Jews for many years tocome. --_Baltimore American. _

Whenever the subject constrains the author to discuss the Christianreligion, he is animated by a spirit not unworthy of the philosophic andhigh-minded hero of Lessing's "Nathan the Wise. "--_New York Sun. _

It is an exhaustive and scholarly work, for which the student of historyhas reason to be devoutly thankful. . . . It will be welcomed also for thewriter's excellent style and for the almost gossipy way in which heturns aside from the serious narrative to illumine his pages withillustrative descriptions of life and scenery. --_Detroit Free Press. _

One of the striking features of the compilation is its succinctness andrapidity of narrative, while at the same time necessary detail is notsacrificed. --_Minneapolis Tribune. _

Whatever controversies the work may awaken, of its noble scholarshipthere can be no question. --_Richmond Dispatch. _

If one desires to study the history of the Jewish people under thedirection of a scholar and pleasant writer who is in sympathy with hissubject because he is himself a Jew, he should resort to the volumes ofGraetz. --_Review of Reviews_ (New York). 

Bound in Cloth. Price, postpaid, $3 per Volume

SABBATH HOURS

=THOUGHTS=

BY LIEBMAN ADLER

=OPINIONS OF THE PRESS=

Rabbi Adler was a man of strong and fertile mind, and his sermons areeminently readable. --_Sunday School Times. _

As one turns from sermon to sermon, he gathers a wealth of preceptwhich, if he would practice, he would make both himself and othershappier. We might quote from every page some noble utterance or sweetthought well worthy of the cherishing by either Jew orChristian. --_Richmond Dispatch. _

The topics discussed are in the most instances practical in theirnature. All are instructive, and passages of rare eloquence are offrequent occurrence. --_San Francisco Call. _

The sermons are simple and careful studies, sometimes of doctrine, butmore often of teaching and precept. --_Chicago Times. _

He combined scholarly attainment with practical experience, and thesesermons cover a wide range of subject. Some of them are singularlymodern in tone. --_Indianapolis News. _

They are modern sermons, dealing with the problems of the day, andconvey the interpretation which these problems should receive in thelight of the Old Testament history. --_Boston Herald. _

While this book is not without interest in those communities where thereis no scarcity of religious teaching and influence, it cannot fail to beparticularly so in those communities where there is but little Jewishteaching. --_Baltimore American. _

The sermons are thoughtful and earnest in tone and draw many forcibleand pertinent lessons from the Old Testament records. --_SyracuseHerald. _

They are saturated with Bible lore, but every incident taken from theOld Testament is made to illustrate some truth in modern life. --_SanFrancisco Chronicle. _

They are calm and conservative, . . . Applicable in their essentialmeaning to the modern religious needs of Gentile as well as Jew. Instyle they are eminently clear and direct. -_-Review of Reviews_ (NewYork). 

Able, forcible, helpful thoughts upon themes most essential to theprosperity of the family, society and the state. --_Public Opinion_(Washington, D. C. ). 

Bound in Cloth. Price, postpaid, $1. 25

PAPERS

OF THE

Jewish Women's Congress

Held at Chicago, September, 1893

=OPINIONS OF THE PRESS=

This meeting was held during the first week of September, and was markedby the presentation of some particularly interesting addresses andplans. This volume is a complete report of the sessions. --_ChicagoTimes. _

The collection in book form of the papers read at the Jewish Women'sCongress . . . Makes an interesting and valuable book, of the history andaffairs of the Jewish women of America. --_St. Louis Post-Dispatch. _

A handsome and valuable souvenir of an event of great significance tothe people of the Jewish faith, and of much interest and value tointelligent and well informed people of all faiths. --_Kansas CityTimes. _

The Congress was a branch of the Parliament of Religions and was a greatsuccess, arousing the interest of Jews and Christians alike, andbringing together from all parts of the country women interested intheir religion, following similar lines of work and sympathetic in waysof thought. . . . The papers in the volume are all of interest. --_DetroitFree Press. _

The Jewish Publication Society of America has done a good work ingathering up and issuing in a well-printed volume the "Papers of theJewish Women's Congress. "--_Cleveland Plain-Dealer. _

Bound in Cloth. Price, postpaid, $1

OLD EUROPEAN JEWRIES

BY DAVID PHILIPSON, D. D. 

=OPINIONS OF THE PRESS=

A good purpose is served in this unpretending little book, . . . Whichcontains an amount and kind of information that it would be difficult tofind elsewhere without great labor. The author's subject is the Ghetto, or Jewish quarter in European cities. --_Literary World_ (Boston). 

It is interesting . . . To see the foundation of . . . So much fiction thatis familiar to us--to go, as the author here has gone in one of histrips abroad, into the remains of the old Jewries. --_Baltimore Sun. _

His book is a careful study limited to the official Ghetto. --_CincinnatiCommercial-Gazette. _

Out-of-the-way information, grateful to the delver in antiquities, formsthe staple of a work on the historic Ghettos of Europe--_MilwaukeeSentinel. _

He tells the story of the Ghettos calmly, sympathetically andconscientiously, and his deductions are in harmony with those of allother intelligent and fair-minded men. --_Richmond Dispatch. _

A striking study of the results of a system that has left its mark uponthe Jews of all countries. --_San Francisco Chronicle. _

He has carefully gone over all published accounts and madediscriminating use of the publications, both recent and older, on hissubject, in German, French and English. --_Reform Advocate_ (Chicago). 

Bound in Cloth. Price, postpaid, $1. 25

 * * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Zunz, _Gesammelte Schriften_, I. , 42. 

[2] G. Scherr, _Allgemeine Geschichte der Litteratur_, I. , p. 62. 

[3] F. Freiligrath, _Die Bilderbibel_. 

[4] D. Cassel, _Lehrbuch der jüdischen Geschichte und Literatur_, p. 198. 

[5] Heine, _Romanzero, Jehuda ben Halevy_. 

[6] F. Delitzsch, _Zur Geschichte der jüdischen Poesie_, p. 165. 

[7] Heine, _l. C. _

[8] Heine, _l. C. _

[9] M. J. Schleiden, _Die Bedeutung der Juden für die Erhaltung derWissenschaften im Mittelalter_, p. 37. 

[10] Ezek. Xxiii. 4. [Tr. ]

[11] Ad. Jellinek, _Der jüdische Stamm_, p. 195. 

[12] "Makama (plural, Makamat), the Arabic word for a place where peoplecongregate to discuss public affairs, came to be used as the name of aform of poetry midway between the epic and the drama. " (Karpeles, _Geschichte der jüdischen Literatur_, vol. II. , p. 693. ) The most famousArabic poet of Makamat was Hariri of Bassora, and the most famousJewish, Yehuda Charisi. See above, p. 32, and p. 211 [Tr. ]

[13] Hirt, _Bibliothek_, V. , p. 43. 

[14] _Midrash Echah_, I. , 5; Mishna, _Rosh Hashana_, chap. II. 

[15] Cmp. Wünsche, Die Haggada des jerusalemischen Talmud, and the sameauthor's great work, Die Haggada des babylonischen Talmud, IL; also W. Bacher, Die Agada der Tannaiten, Die Agada der babylonischen Amoräer, and Die Agada der palästinensischen Amoräer, Vol. I. 

[16] M. Sachs, _Stimmen vom Jordan und Euphrat_. 

[17] Emanuel Deutsch, "Literary Remains, " p. 45. 

[18] Address at the dedication of the new meeting-house of theIndependent Order B'nai B'rith, at Berlin. 

[19] Numbers, xxi. 17, 18. 

[20] Psalm cxxxiii. 

[21] M. J. Schleiden: _Die Bedeutung der Juden für die Erhaltung derWissenschaften im Mittelalter_, p. 7. 

[22] _Moed Katan_, 26_a_. 

[23] Cmp. "Israel's Quest in Africa, " pp. 257-258

[24] Cmp. Gutmann, _Die Religiousphilosophie des Saâdja_. 

[25] M. Hess, _Rom und Jerusalem_, p. 2. 

[26] Midrash _Yalkut_ on Proverbs. 

[27] _Berachoth_, 10_a_. 

[28] _Baba Metsiah_, 59_a_. 

[29] _Sota_, 20_a_. 

[30] _Berachoth_, 51_b_. 

[31] Cmp. W. Bacher in _Frankel-Graetz Monatsschrift_, Vol. XX. , p. 186. 

[32] Cmp. E. David, _Sara Copia Sullam, une héroïne juive au XVII^esiècle_. 

[33] For the following, compare Kayserling, _Sephardim_, p. 250 _ff. _

[34] Cmp. _Rahel, ein Buch des Andenkens für ihre Freunde_, Vol. I. , p. 43. 

[35] By Julius Rodenberg. 

[36] Ritter, _Geschichte der christlichen Philosophie_, Vol. I. , p. 610ff. 

[37] Joel, _Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie_, Vol. II. , p. 9. 

[38] Graetz, _Geschichte der Juden_, Vol. VI. , p. 298 _f. _

[39] "The Guide of the Perplexed, " the English translation, consulted inthis work, was made by M. Friedländer, Ph. D. , (London, Trübner & Co. , 1885). [Tr. ]

[40] Joel, _l. C. _

[41] Cmp. Kayserling, _Sephardim_, p. 23 _ff. _

[42] Translation by Ticknor. [Tr. ]

[43] Cmp. F. Wolf, _Studien zur Geschichte der spanischenNationalliteratur_, p. 236 _ff. _

[44] Cmp. Kayserling, _l. C. _ p. 85 _ff. _

[45] Livius Fürst in _Illustrirte Monatshefte für die gesammtenInteressen des Judenthums_, Vol. I. , p. 14 ff. Cmp. Also, Hagen, _Minnesänger_, Vol. II. , p. 258, Vol. IV. , p. 536 ff. , and W. Goldbaum, _Entlegene Culturen_, p. 275 _ff. _

[46] Graetz, _Geschichte der Juden_, Vol. VI. , p. 257. 

[47] For Gabirol, cmp. A. Geiger, _Salomon Gabirol_, and M. Sachs, _Diereligiöse Poesie der Juden in Spanien_. 

[48] H. Heine, _Romanzero_. 

[49] Translation by Emma Lazarus. [Tr. ]

[50] See note, p. 34. [Tr. ]

[51] J. Schor in _He-Chaluz_, Vol. IV. , p. 154 _ff. _

[52] S. Stein in _Freitagabend_, p. 645 _ff. _

[53] H. A. Meisel, _Der Prüfstein des Kalonymos_. 

[54] Livius Fürst in _Illustrirte Monatshefte_, Vol. I. , p. 105 _ff. _

[55] _Aboda Sara_ 18_b_. 

[56] Midrash on Lamentations, ch. 3, v. 13 _ff. _

[57] Jerusalem Talmud, _Berachoth_, 9. 

[58] Cmp. Berliner, _Yesod Olam, das älteste bekannte dramatischeGedicht in hebräischer Sprache_. 

[59] Delitzsch, _Zur Geschichte der jüdischen Poesie_, p. 88. 

[60] Jellinek, _Der jüdische Stamm_, p. 64. 

[61] Aristotle, _Hist. Anim. _, 8, 28. Nicephorus Gregoras, _Hist. Byzant. _, p. 805. 

[62] Isaiah xi. 11-16. 

[63] Jeremiah xxxi. 8-9. 

[64] Isaiah xlix. 9 and xxvii. 13. 

[65] Ezekiel xxxvii. 16-17. 

[66] Cmp. Spiegel, _Die Alexandersagen bei den Orientalen_. 

[67] Cmp. A. Epstein, _Eldad ha-Dani_, p. X. 

[68] Rüppell, _Reisen in Nubien_, p. 416. 

[69] Cmp. Epstein, _l. C. _, p. 141. 

[70] _Alliance_ Report for 1868. 

[71] Halévy, _Les prières des Falashas_, Introduction. 

[72] Cmp. Edelmann, _Gedulath Shaul_, Introduction. 

[73] Cmp. H. Goldbaum, _Entlegene Culturen_, p. 299 _ff. _

[74] _Woschod_, 1889, No. 10 _ff. _

[75] Graetz, _Geschichte der Juden_, IX. , p. 480. 

[76] Ezekiel xxxvii. 1-11. 

[77] J. G. Herder. 

[78] M. Kayserling: _Moses Mendelssohn_, and L. Geiger, _Geschichte derJuden in Berlin_, II. 

[79] Lessing, _Gesammelte Schriften_, Vol. XII. , p. 247. 

[80] Mendelssohn, _Gesammelte Schriften_, Vol. IV^2, 68 _ff. _

[81] Hensel, _Die Familie Mendelssohn_, Vol. I. , p. 86. 

[82] Cmp. I. Heinemann, _Moses Mendelssohn_, p. 21. 

[83] Cmp. Buker and Caro, _Vor hundert Jahren_, p. 123. 

[84] Address delivered at the installation of the Leopold Zunz Lodge atBerlin. 

[85] In _Sippurim_, I. , 165 _ff. _

[86] Administrators of the secular affairs of Jewish congregations. [Tr. ]

[87] Compassion, charity. [Tr. ]

[88] Talmudical dialectics. [Tr. ]

[89] Cmp. Strodtmann: _H. Heine_, Vol. I. , p. 316. 

[90] Zunz, _Gesammelte Schriften_, Vol. I. , p. 3 _ff. _

[91] _Ibid. _, p. 301. 

[92] _Ibid. _, p. 310. 

[93] _Ibid. _, p. 316. 

[94] _Ibid. _, p. 133. 

[95] Cmp. _Memoiren_ in his Collected Works, Vol. VI. , p. 375 _ff. _

[96] Ludwig Kalisch, _Pariser Skizzen_, p. 331. 

[97] Collected Works, Vol. IV. , p. 227. 

[98] _Ibid. _, Vol. III. , p. 13. 

[99] _Ibid. _, Vol. IV. , p. 257 _ff. _

[100] _Ibid. _, Vol. VIII. , p. 390 _ff. _

[101] _Ibid. _, Vol. I. , p. 196. 

[102] Vol. II. , p. 110. Cmp. Frauenstädt, _A. Schopenhauer_, p. 467_ff. _

[103] Collected Works, Vol. VII. , p. 255 _ff. _

[104] Alfred Meissner, _Heinrich Heine_, p. 138 _ff. _

[105] Ludwig Kalisch, _Pariser Skizzen_, p. 334. 

[106] Collected Works, Vol. VII. , 473 _ff. _

[107] Address at the celebration of Herr Lewandowski's fiftiethanniversary as director of music. 

[108] _Yoma_, 38_a_. 

[109] Cmp. Fétis, _Histoire générale de la Musique_, Vol. I. , p. 563_ff. _