Ecclesiasticus: Written originally in Hebrew by Simon ben
Jeshua ben Sira, who flourished in Jerusalem in the second
century, B.C.E. Translated into Greek by the author’s
grandson, who resided in Egypt between 132‒116. The Hebrew
original was lost for over 1,000 years, and was re-discovered
in the Cairo Geniza by Dr. Schechter in 1896.
28. The change from the Revised Version in the second line is
according to the newly-discovered Hebrew original.
_Their name liveth for evermore_; the phrasing of the
Authorized Version has been restored. These five words have
been chosen by the Imperial War Graves Commission as the
inscription for the central monuments on the cemeteries in
France and Flanders.
30. Dubnow: _Jewish History_, J. P. S., chap. 12. Dubnow’s sketch
is a brief, philosophical survey of Jewish History.
Hertz: From Presidential Address, Union of Jewish Literary
Societies, ‘On “Renaissance” and “Culture” and their Jewish
Applications’.
32. Geiger: _Judaism and its History_, I, 2.
33. _Aspects of Rabbinic Theology_, p. 112.
34. _Jews in Many Lands._ J. P. S.
35. Singer: _Sermons_, i. ‘Judaism and Citizenship.’ (Routledge.)
36. Achad Ha’am: _Selected Essays_, J. P. S., 1912.
‘Some Consolation.’ A number of those original and
thought-compelling essays have been republished in the
series _Zionist Pamphlets_, 1916 & 1917.
The words ‘The Duty of Self-Respect’ are the title of a paper
by the late F. D. Mocatta.
37. Nordau: Address at First Zionist Congress, Basle.
Schechter: _Seminary Addresses_. ‘Higher Criticism――Higher
Anti-Semitism.’
38. Disraeli: From Preface to _Collected Works of Isaac D’Israeli_.
39. Hertz: From Reply to ‘Verax’, _The Times_, November 29, 1919.
Recent anti-Semitic attacks in the Press recall
Steinschneider’s comment: ‘When dealing with Jewish questions
it is not necessary to be either logical or fair. It seems
one may say anything of Jews so long as it brings them into
contempt.’
40. _An Epistle to the Hebrews._ Letter 4. Republished by the
Federation of American Zionists, 1900.
41. These stirring lines were written during the Boer War.
42. Dr. Adler continues: ‘Here we are spared the most distressful
sight, the revival of odious religious prejudices and
pernicious racial antipathies.’ These words would require
some qualification to-day.
43. _Songs of a Wanderer_, J. P. S.
48. ‘Why am I a Jew?’ North American Review.
A similar thought is expressed by the same writer in his
Address at the Chicago Parliament of Religions: ‘There is
a legend that when Adam and Eve were turned out of Eden, an
angel shattered the gates, and the fragments flying all over
the earth are the precious stones. We can carry the legend
further. The precious stones were picked up by the various
religions and philosophies of the world. Each claimed and
claims that its own fragment alone reflects the light of
heaven. In God’s own time we shall, all of us, fit our
fragments together and reconstruct the Gates of Paradise.
Through the gates shall all peoples pass to the foot of
God’s throne. The throne is called by us the mercy-seat.
Name of happy augury, for God’s Mercy shall wipe out all
record of mankind’s errors and strayings, the sad story of
our unbrotherly actions.’
49. _Judaism as Creed and Life._ Book III, chap. x. Book III is the
best modern presentation of the ethical life under the aspect
of Judaism.
II
53. Lucas: _The Jewish Year_, Macmillan, 1898. Every one of
Mrs. Lucas’s admirable versions of the principal mediaeval
Jewish hymns quoted in this book are from the above volume.
58. Levi: See Miss Helen Zimmern’s monograph on ‘David Levi, Poet
and Patriot’, in the J. Q. R., 1897.
59. Zangwill: ‘The Position of Judaism’. North American Review.
60. Schechter: _Seminary Addresses_. ‘Higher Criticism――Higher
Anti-Semitism’.
61. Sulzberger: From Address at the Decennial Meeting of the
J. P. S.
Leeser: Preface, _The Twenty-four Books of the Holy Scriptures_.
62. Adler: From a Sermon, ‘This Book of the Law’.
63. Rashi: On Exodus vi. 9. _Scripture must be interpreted according
to its plain, natural sense_――an epoch-making pronouncement
in the history of Bible exegesis. Though he is not the author
of this canon of interpretation, Rashi is the first seriously
to attempt its application. ‘Rashi deserves the foremost place
which the judgment of Jewish scholars generally accords him.
He has two of the greatest and rarest gifts of the commentator,
the instinct to discern precisely the point at which
explanation is necessary, and the art of giving or indicating
the needed help in the fewest words.’ (G. F. Moore.)
64. Halevi: _Cusari_, ii, 56. Translated by H. Hirschfeld under the
Arabic title _Kitab Al-Khazari_ (Routledge), 1905.
Geiger: _Judaism and its History_, I, 3.
67. Jacobs: _Jewish Contributions to Civilization_, J. P. S.
Shemtob: A remarkable anticipation by over three and a half
centuries of the modern view of the rôle of the Prophets.
Compare with the two other selections on the Prophets the
following by Felix Adler:――
‘Either we must place nature uppermost, or man uppermost.
If we choose the former, then man himself becomes a mere
soulless tool in the hands of destiny, a part of a machine,
the product of his circumstances. If we choose the latter,
then all nature will catch a reflected light from the glory
of the moral aims of man.
‘The Hebrew Prophets chose the latter alternative. They
asserted the freedom of man; and the general conscience of
mankind, despite all cavilings and sophistry to the contrary,
has ever responded to their declaration with a loud Amen.
They argued, to put their thought in modern language, that
we may fairly judge of the whole course of evolution by its
highest outcome, and they believed its highest outcome to be,
not mere mechanical order of beauty, but righteousness.
‘The Hebrew Prophets interpreted the universe in terms of
humanity’s aspirations. They believe that the ends of
justice are too precious to be lost; that, if righteousness
is not yet real in the world, it must be made real; and,
hence, that there must be a Power in the world which makes
for righteousness.’
68. Darmesteter: _Selected Essays_, translated by Jastrow, N.Y.,
1895.
Lazarus: _The Spirit of Judaism_, New York, 1895.
69. _The Literary Remains of Emanuel Deutsch_, 1874. _The Talmud:
Two Essays by Deutsch and Darmesteter_, J. P. S., 1911.
71. _Chapters in Jewish Literature_, J. P. S. Preface.
73. Magnus: _Outlines of Jewish History_, J. P. S., p. 333.
74. Jacobs: _Jewish Ideals and other Essays_, 1896.
Halevi: _Cusari_, ii, 36.
Gaster: Presidential Address, Transactions of Jewish Historical
Society of England, vol. viii.
75. _Jewish History_, concluding paragraph.
76. Zunz: _Synagogale Poesie des Mittelalters_, chap. ii. ‘Leiden.’
This wonderful presentation of the Sufferings of the Jews
in the Middle Ages has been translated by Dr. A. Löwy in
_Miscellany of Hebrew Literature_. First Series, 1872; and
has been republished in the ‘Library of Jewish Classics’,
Bloch Publishing Co., New York, 1916.
77. _Antiquities of the Jews._ Book xviii, 8.
80. Dean Plumptre, _Lazarus and other Poems_.
82. Heine: The following is a more literal version by Nina
Salaman:――
Break out in loud lamenting,
Thou sombre martyr-song,
That all aflame I have carried
In my silent soul so long.
Into all ears it presses,
Thence every heart to gain――
I have conjured up so fiercely
The thousand-year-old pain.
The great and small are weeping,
Even men so cold of eye;
The women weep and the flowers,
The stars are weeping on high.
And all these tears are flowing
In silent brotherhood,
Southward-flowing and falling
All into Jordan’s flood.
83. _Curiosities of Literature_, vol. ii.
86. Abarbanel’s _Reader_.
87. _Poems of Emma Lazarus_, _New York_, 1889, vol. ii.
89. _Songs of Exile_, J. P. S., 1901.
90. From ‘Jewish Ethics’ (M. Joseph) in _Religious Systems of the
World_, London, 1892.
91. ‘Vindiciae Judaeorum’, i. 7, in L. Wolf, _Manasseh Ben Israel’s
Mission to Oliver Cromwell_, 1901.
92. Hirsch: _Nineteen Letters of Ben Uziel_, 16th Letter (Funk and
Wagnalls) New York, 1899.
95. J. E., vol. xii, 348.
96. Hertz: ‘Lord Rothschild: A Memorial Sermon.’
97. _History of the Jews in Poland and Russia_ (Putnams), 1915,
conclusion.
99. _Past and Present: A Collection of Jewish Essays_, chap. xvi,
Ark Publishing Co., Cincinnati, 1919.
101. ‘What is a pogrom? Better than any abstract definition is
a concrete record taken haphazard of an actual pogrom.
Orscha is a town of 14,000 inhabitants, half of them Jews.
On October 18, 1905, the news of the proclamation of the
Constitution reached Orscha. On the 19th the general strike
stopped; Jew and Christian embraced; the houses were hung
with flags, a service of thanksgiving was held; processions
filled the streets. In the evening the Mohilev police
officer Misgaib entered the town, and the rumour ran round
that a patriotic demonstration was to take place and the
Jews to be beaten. On the 20th, drunken men gathered to
take the official’s orders. On the morning of the 21st, the
peasants entered the town armed with axes and guns. “The
village authorities have sent us; whoever does not come
will be punished. We are to do whatever is ordered.” At
one o’clock a priest exhorted the crowds of the faithful
to purge their city of the aliens, and the cry arose, “Long
live absolutism! Down with the mayor, who has sold the town
to the Jews”. The first murders followed. The house of a
rich Jew was stormed. Without the soldiers fired, a priest
held service, and a band played the national anthem; while
within eight men, women and children were tortured to death.
The appetite was only whetted. At six o’clock the peasants
begged the police for more orders, more work. They were told
to wait till daylight; the darkness might encourage the Jews
to resist. On the same day twelve Jewish youths came from
Shklov to help their brethren. They were met at the station
and murdered, and for seven hours every man that passed
mutilated or insulted their dead bodies. The massacre became
general. The 23rd was given up to plunder. At mid-day the
Vice-Governor spoke to the crowds: “Children, it is enough.
You have had three days’ amusement, now go home and sing
‘God save the Czar’”. The pogrom at Orscha was typical of
the 690 greater and lesser pogroms which took place that
October.’ (H. Sacher on ‘Die Judenpogromme in Russland’.
_Jewish Review_, i.)
106. Wolf: ‘_The Legal Sufferings of the Jews in Russia_.’
Lazarus: First appeared in ‘_Songs of a Semite_’, New York,
1882.
_Each crime that wakes in man the beast,
Is visited upon his kind._
The lines, written in 1882, apply with hundredfold force
to the uninterrupted pogroms that have been raging in the
Ukraine throughout 1919. More than 100,000 Jews――men, women,
and children――have been butchered in cold blood by the
hordes under Generals Denikin and Petlura. The soldiery,
intoxicated with blood, invented the most diabolical
tortures. See the Report on Jewish Pogroms by Kieff Pogrom
Relief Committee, controlled by the Russian Red Cross,
London, 1920. ‘Our masses in Eastern Europe have been facing
death in seven circles of hell. It is sufficient to remember
the multi-massacres of Ukrainia. For this cold murder of
whole communities not Heaven itself nor all the mercy of
the angels could find palliation. There is no instance that
shows so much as this the ghastly descent of human character
into primitive brutality and cannibalism. This is a deed
which in its horror and wicked purposelessness should have
stunned the world.’ (Nahum Sokolow, Opening Address of
London Zionist Conference, July 7, 1920.) The following
stanzas are from Mr. Zangwill’s appeal to American Jewry on
behalf of the victims:――
OUR OWN
By devastated dwellings,
By desecrated fanes,
By hearth-stones, cold and crimsoned,
And slaughter-reeking lanes,
Again is the Hebrew quarter
Through half of Europe known;
And crouching in the shambles,
Rachel, the ancient crone,
Weeps again for her children
and the fate that is her own.
No laughter rings in these ruins
Save of girls to madness shamed.
Their mothers disembowelled
Lie stark ’mid children maimed.
The Shool has a great congregation
But never a psalm they drone.
Shrouded in red-striped Tallisim,
Levi huddles with Kohn;
But the blood from their bodies oozing
is the blood that is your own.
Shot, some six to the bullet,
Lashed and trailed in the dust,
Mutilated with hatchets
In superbestial lust――
No beast can even imagine
What Christians do or condone――
Surely these bear our burden
And for our sins atone,
And if we hide our faces,
then the guilt is as our own.
At last but a naked rabble,
Clawing the dust for bread,
Jabbering, wailing, whining,
Hordes of the living dead,
Half apes, half ghosts, they grovel,
Nor human is their tone,
Yet they are not brutes but brethren,
These wrecks of the hunger-zone,
And their death-cry rings to heaven
in the tongue that is your own.
107. For an historical account of these child-martyrdoms, see
Dubnow, _History of the Jewish Russia and Poland_, J. P. S.,
1918, vol. ii, pp. 18‒29.
109. _Stories and Pictures_, J. P. S., 1906, contains the best work
of Peretz. The Yiddish original of ‘Bontzie Schweig’, with
English translation, is published in Wiener, pp. 332‒53.
With Peretz, Yiddish letters ‘enter into competition with
what is best in the world’s literature, where he will some
day occupy an honourable place. Peretz offers gladly all he
has, his genius, in the service of the lowly. Literature,
according to him, is a consolation to those who have no
other consolation, a safe and pleasurable retreat for those
who are buffeted about on the stormy sea of life. For these
reasons he prefers to dwell with the down-trodden and the
submerged.’ (Wiener).
117. Cf. Emma Lazarus’ _Banner of the Jew_:――
Oh for Jerusalem’s trumpet now,
To blow a blast of shattering power,
To wake the sleepers high and low,
And rouse them to the urgent hour!
No hand for vengeance――but to save,
A million naked swords should wave.
Oh deem not dead that martial fire,
Say not the mystic flame is spent!
With Moses’ law and David’s lyre,
Your ancient strength remains unbent.
Let but an Ezra rise anew,
To lift the _Banner of the Jew_!
A rag, a mock at first――ere long,
When men have bled and women wept
To guard its precious folds from wrong,
Even they who shrunk, even they who slept,
Shall leap to bless it, and to save.
Strike! for the brave revere the brave!
‘When the anti-Semite agitation took the form of massacre
and spoliation, several pamphlets were published by Jews in
Russia, advocating the restoration of the Jewish State. They
found a powerful echo in the United States, where a young
Jewish poetess, Miss Emma Lazarus, passionately championed
the Zionist cause in verse not unworthy of Yehudah Halevi.’
(Lucien Wolf, _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, ‘Zionism’.)
119. _Seminary Addresses_, ‘Zionism’.
120. _Selected Essays_, ‘Moses’.
123. _Jewish Review_, I.
124. Herzl: ‘Herzl’s personal charm was irresistible. His sincerity,
his eloquence, his tact, his devotion, his power, were
recognized on all hands. He spent his whole strength in the
furtherance of his ideas. Diplomatic interviews, exhausting
journeys, impressive mass meetings, brilliant literary
propaganda――all these methods were employed by him to the
utmost limit of self-denial. He was beyond question the most
influential Jewish personality of the nineteenth century.
He effectively roused Jews all the world over to an earnest
and vital interest in their present and their future. Herzl
thus left an indelible mark on his time, and his renown
is assured whatever be the fate in store for the political
Zionism which he founded and for which he gave his life.’ (I.
Abrahams in _Encyclopaedia Britannica_.)
125. Herzl: Address at Zionist Congress, London, 1900.
Hertz: Address at Thanksgiving Meeting for the Balfour
Declaration, Dec. 2, 1917.
127. Herzl: Address at First Zionist Congress, Basle, 1897.
Schechter: _Aspects_, 105.
Noah: See ‘Noah’s Ark’ in Zangwill’s _Dreamers of the Ghetto_
for an account of this early American Zionist.
III
131. Cornill: In the same masterly address, _Humanity in the Old
Testament_, this great Biblical scholar says:――
‘But not only to man does the humanitarianism of the Torah
extend, it cares for the brute as well, and places it
likewise under legal protection, to which I know of no
analogy in older extra-Israelitish codes. The Israelite
ascribed a soul even to the brute, and saw in it a creature
of God, which, while subservient to man by God, yet should
not be helplessly exposed to his caprice. What a truly
humanitarian sentiment finds expression in the Law; “Thou
shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn”.
The brute should not perform hard labour, and at the same
time have food before its eyes, without the possibility of
eating therefrom. I remember some time ago, to have read
that one of the richest Italian real-estate owners, at
the grape-harvest, fastened iron muzzles to his miserable,
fever-stricken workmen, so that it might not occur to these
poor peasants, working for starvation wages under the glowing
sun of Southern Italy, to satiate their burning thirst and
their gnawing hunger with a few of the millions of grapes of
the owner.’
132. _Literature and Dogma_, 1, 4, and xi, 6.
133. _History of the People of Israel._ Preface.
134. Lotze: _Microcosm_, III.
138. Frazer: _Passages of the Bible chosen for their Literary
Beauty_.――Preface.
Compare the following from the same writer’s _The Folklore of
the Old Testament_ (Macmillan, 1918):――
‘The revelation of the baser elements which underlay the
civilization of ancient Israel, as they underlie the
civilization of modern Europe, serves rather as a foil to
enhance by contrast the glory of a people which, from such
dark depths of ignorance and cruelty, could rise to such
bright heights of wisdom and virtue. The annals of savagery
and superstition unhappily compose a large part of human
literature; but in what other volume shall we find, side by
side with that melancholy record, psalmists who poured forth
their sweet and solemn strains of meditative piety in the
solitude of the hills or in green pastures and beside still
waters; prophets who lit up their beatific visions of a
blissful future with the glow of an impassioned imagination;
historians who bequeathed to distant ages the scenes of a
remote past embalmed for ever in the amber of a pellucid
style? These are the true glories of the Old Testament and
of Israel.’
139. Huxley: _Educational Essays_.
140. Huxley: ‘From the free spirit of the Mosaic law sprang the
intensity of family life that amid all dispersions and
persecutions has preserved the individuality of the Hebrew
race; that love of independence that under the most adverse
circumstance has characterized the Jew; that burning
patriotism that flamed up in the Maccabees and bared the
breasts of Jewish peasants to the serried steel of Grecian
phalanx and the resistless onset of Roman legion; that
stubborn courage that in exile and in torture held the
Jew to his faith. It kindled that fire that has made the
strains of Hebrew seers and poets phrase for us the highest
exaltations of thought; that intellectual vigour that has
over and over again made the dry staff bud and blossom.
And it has exerted its power wherever the influence of the
Hebrew scriptures has been felt. It has toppled thrones and
cast down hierarchies.’ (Henry George.)
141. Renan: _History of the People of Israel_, chap. 7.
143. _Moses._ This splendid lecture should be read in full.
It is published in a penny edition by the ‘Land Value’
Publication Dept., Strand.
147. Dow: ‘Hebrew and Puritan’, J. Q. R., iii.
Rhys: _Lyrical Poetry from the Bible_. (Dent.) Introduction.
Cornill: _The Culture of Ancient Israel_. Open Court Publishing
Co., Chicago. ‘The Psalms in the World’s Literature.’
151. Jowett: _Selected Passages from the Theological Writings_,
1903, p. 53.
152. _The Prophets of Israel._ Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago,
1895.
156. Stanley: _History of the Jewish Church_, iii, lecture 45.
157. ‘Social Life in France in the Fourteenth Century’ (The Jews),
Fortnightly Review, vol. 57.
158. _The Shield_, edited by Gorky, &c., A. A. Knopf, New York,
1917. ‘Russia and the Jews.’
159. Herford: _Pharisaism: Its aim and methods_, 1912, chap. vi.
160. ‘A Theist’s Impressions of Judaism’, J. Q. R., xix.
162. _Israel among the Nations. _New York, 1893.
166. _Rationalism in Europe_, chap. vi.
171. _Short History of the English People_, chap. viii, i.
172. _Essay and Speech on Jewish Disabilities_, ed. I. Abrahams and
S. Levy. (Jewish Historical Society of England) 1910.
177. From ‘A Letter on the Jew’ sent to a Jewish meeting, Capetown,
July 1, 1906.
178. Milyukov: In _The Shield_, ‘The Jewish Question in Russia’.
Lecky: _Democracy and Liberty_, 1896.
179. The Talmudic Story is from _Three Legends_ (Berlin, 1904),
written and published by Tolstoy in aid of the victims of the
Kishineff pogrom.
180. Schreiner: See Note 177.
181. The British Protest, together with the French, German, and
Russian Protests, were republished in pamphlet form by the
_Jewish Chronicle_ in 1913.
185. Quoted in Davies’s _Gems from the Fathers_ (Bagster).
IV
189. Philo: C. G. Montefiore, ‘Florilegium Philonis’, in J. Q. R.
vii (1895) is a good introduction to the Moses Mendelssohn
of Hellenistic Judaism.
193. Abrahams: _Authorized Prayer Book, Annotated Edition_, p. viii.
Both Mrs. Lucas in _The Jewish Year_, and Mr. Zangwill in _The
Service of the Synagogue_ (Routledge) have produced versions
of Adon Olam. The following is by George Borrow in _The Bible
in Spain_:――
Reigned the Universe’s Master,
ere were earthly things begun;
When His mandate all created,
Ruler was the name he won;
And alone He’ll rule tremendous
when all things are past and gone,
He no equal has, nor consort,
He, the singular and lone,
Has no end and no beginning;
His the sceptre, might, and throne.
He’s my God and living Saviour,
rock to whom in need I run;
He’s my banner and my refuge,
fount of weal when call’d upon;
In His hand I place my spirit,
at nightfall and at rise of sun,
And therewith my body also;
God’s my God――I fear no one.
194. From the first Jewish Hymn Book in America――a free rendering.
195. _The Menorah Journal_, vol. ii, 1916. ‘A Plea for Orthodoxy.’
196. Hertz: _Inaugural Sermon_, Congregation Orach Chayim, New York,
1912.
198. Abrahams: ‘Judaism and Spiritism’, in _Jewish Guardian_,
October 1, 1919.
199. In Philipson, _Old European Jewries_, J. P. S.
201. Jacobs: _Jewish Ideals_. ‘And what great bliss and happiness
did the Sabbath bring to the family life. When Friday evening
came and the Sabbath lamps were lighted and our fathers sang
their Sabbath hymns, they forgot, once in each week, all the
sorrows and cares of everyday life, and all the affronts and
insults which, without pity and without mercy, were heaped
upon them, and at last on the Sabbath they felt released in
body and soul from all troubles and burdens.’ (B. Felsenthal.)
A SABBATH TABLE-SONG.
Treasure of heart for the broken people,
Gift of new soul for the souls distrest,
Soother of sighs for the prisoned spirit――
The Sabbath of rest.
_This day is for Israel light and rejoicing,
A Sabbath of rest._
When the work of the worlds in their wonder was finished,
Thou madest this day to be holy and blest,
And those heavy-laden find safety and stillness,
A Sabbath of rest.
_This day is for Israel light and rejoicing,
A Sabbath of rest._
ISAAC LURIA, 1560.
(_Trans. Nina Salaman._)
202. _Songs of a Wanderer._
204. See _Authorized Prayer Book, Annotated Edition_, pp. cxlix
and cclix.
206. Also in _Songs of a Wanderer_.
207. _The Ideal in Judaism_, 1893.