_From Dr. Cyrus Adler_
_President of the Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning,
Philadelphia_
[Illustration]
I AM very glad to be able through this first number of your Journal to
send a word of greeting to the Menorah men throughout the United
States. An Association which has as its object the promotion in
American colleges and universities of the study of Jewish history,
culture and problems, and the advancement of Jewish ideals, cannot but
fail to command my personal and official interest and support.
The Jewish people have a long and honorable record of literary
activity. Our Holy Scriptures, our Rabbinical Literature, our
contributions to philosophy, to ethics, to law, our poetry, sacred and
secular, our share in the world's history, all become part of the
program which you have laid out for yourselves as a means of
cultivation. In their due proportion they should (although they do
not) form a part of the outfit of every educated man. That they should
be especially cultivated by Jewish young people is self-evident, and,
for several thousand years, they have been.
You Menorah men have taken the modern form of association for the
purpose of carrying on these studies, of cherishing your Jewish ideals
along with your general culture or with your chosen profession, and it
was high time that you should do so. You already count thousands of
young people, and as time goes on you will gradually increase in
number. From among your group will come the future leaders of the
Jewish people in America, and your main body will form our
intellectual backbone. It is my hope and belief that your movement
will gradually tend toward the maintenance and promotion of Judaism in
this land.
We are now a population of nearly three million souls. That such a
vast body should be lost to Judaism or should maintain a Judaism
ignorant of its language, its literature or its traditions, is almost
unthinkable. Conditions abroad may shift the center of gravity of
Judaism and of Jewish learning to the American continent. Your
movement is one which will aid in training the group that may be
expected to measure up to our new responsibilities.
It has been a source of great personal pleasure to me to meet with
your Association in your annual convention and to have the privilege
of coming in personal contact with some of your Societies,--at
Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Pennsylvania, and Boston Universities. I hope
to have the pleasure of meeting more of you and to derive more of the
stimulus which your enthusiasm gives me in my work. Speaking not only
in my own name but in behalf of my colleagues on the Board of
Governors and the Faculty of The Dropsie College for Hebrew and
Cognate Learning, I wish your Association and your Journal success in
all of your endeavors.
[Illustration: Signature: Cyrus Adler]
_From Louis D. Brandeis_
_Chairman of the Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist
Affairs_
[Illustration]
THE formation at Harvard University on October 25, 1906, of the first
Menorah Society is a landmark in the Jewish Renaissance. That
Renaissance, in which the Society is certain to be a significant
factor, is of no less importance to America than to its Jews.
America offers to man his greatest opportunity--liberty amidst peace
and large natural resources. But the noble purpose to which America is
dedicated cannot be attained unless this high opportunity is fully
utilized; and to this end each of the many peoples which she has
welcomed to her hospitable shores must contribute the best of which it
is capable. To America the contribution of the Jews can be peculiarly
large. America's fundamental law seeks to make real the brotherhood of
man. That brotherhood became the Jews' fundamental law more than
twenty-five hundred years ago. America's twentieth century demand is
for social justice. That has been the Jews' striving ages-long. Their
religion and their afflictions have prepared them for effective
democracy. Persecution made the Jews' law of brotherhood
self-enforcing. It taught them the seriousness of life; it broadened
their sympathies; it deepened the passion for righteousness; it
trained them in patient endurance, in persistence, in self-control,
and in self-sacrifice. Furthermore, the widespread study of Jewish law
developed the intellect, and made them less subject to preconceptions
and more open to reason.
America requires in her sons and daughters these qualities and
attainments, which are our natural heritage. Patriotism to America, as
well as loyalty to our past, imposes upon us the obligation of
claiming this heritage of the Jewish spirit and of carrying forward
noble ideals and traditions through lives and deeds worthy of our
ancestors. To this end each new generation should be trained in the
knowledge and appreciation of their own great past; and the
opportunity should be afforded for the further development of Jewish
character and culture.
The Menorah Societies and their Journal deserve most generous support
in their efforts to perform this noble task.
[Illustration: Signature: Louis D. Brandeis]
_From Dr. Richard Gottheil_
_Professor of Rabbinical Literature and the Semitic Languages,
Columbia University_
[Illustration]
I HAVE been asked to say a word of greeting to the readers of the
Menorah Journal. I do so with pleasure; indeed with much satisfaction.
The Menorah students at our colleges and universities will now be
bound together by a new bond, one that will give them a more unified
direction and converge their efforts toward the goal which the Menorah
has set for itself.
I should like to think that it is not entirely fortuitous that this
added impulse is given to our work just at this time. We all feel that
the present is a moment when the very foundations of our ethical
life--both as individuals and as groups--have received a rude shock.
At such a time--more than ever--we need to understand and to bear in
mind the great teachings which Jewish sages have given to the world,
as their and our contribution to the moral foundations of society.
Such teachings were, in most cases, not decked out in the tawdry
trappings of a recondite and far-fetched philosophy, nor garnished
with the decorations of superlogical terminology, nor even put forth
with lusty rhetoric. They were simple and to the point, because they
were founded upon deep religious convictions.
One of these teachings occurs to me as I write these lines: "The moral
condition of the world depends upon three things--truth, justice and
peace." Have we outgrown such teaching? Have the astounding advances
made during the last one hundred years in the science of physical
living brought us any nearer to the true inwardness of moral living
than the ethical principles put forth by these early teachers? As our
hearts are rent by the sufferings of those who are caught in the
meshes of the terrible war now raging, and as our intellects are
befogged by the various excuses advanced in justification of carnage
and wholesale destruction, do not the simple words of the old Hebrew
sage appear to us as a beacon-light in the surrounding darkness?
"Truth, Justice, Peace!"
Many similar lessons are awaiting those who will show some little
willingness to learn and to know. They are a part of the patrimony
that is ours, and which for the most part we refuse to claim. A voice
is crying to us out of our own midst. We do not hear; for our ears are
sealed as with wax. The Menorah Societies, which now are to be found
in most of our institutions of higher learning, have set themselves
the task of bringing our Jewish students to a consciousness of their
own past, to a knowledge of their history as members of a great
historic people, and to a just appreciation of the teachings of their
religion. It is only the knowledge of what we have tried to be that
will make us realize fully what we are and will enable us to see what
our future may be. The Menorah Journal is intended to bring this
knowledge to our young men, to harden their Jewish resolve and to
point the way along which lies the consummation of our Jewish hopes.
It sends its greeting to every Jewish student, whether or not he be a
member of a Menorah Society. We of an older generation look to our
university and college men as the Jewish leaders of the future. Let
them gather around the Menorah Journal in order to make it a true
expression of Jewish ideals, a powerful incentive to join the ranks of
those who are active in our cause. The word of the Prophet comes to me
again: "Be ye strong, therefore, and let not your hands be weak; for
your work shall be rewarded."
[Illustration: Signature: Richard Gottheil]
_From Joseph Jacobs_
_Editor of The American Hebrew, New York_
[Illustration]
I GREET the appearance of the official organ of the Menorah Societies
something in the spirit of Ibsen's Master-Builder, who hears the
coming generation knocking at the door. I have long been of the
opinion that the future of American Israel lies with the academic Jews
of the American universities. The organ that represents them should
be, from this point of view, the voice of Israel's future in America.
If you can live up to that ideal, you have indeed a great future
before you.
[Illustration: Signature: Joseph Jacobs]
_From Dr. Kaufman Kohler_
_President of Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati_
[Illustration]
AS you wander through the ruins of the _Forum Romanum_ and are within
sight of the _Via Appia_ at the other end, your attention is riveted
by an exquisite white marble arch wonderfully preserved. It is the
Arch of Titus erected in memory of Rome's triumph over _Judæa Capta_.
As you look closer at the trophies chiseled on this famous monument,
you find there standing out most conspicuously the seven-armed
candlestick carried by the Jewish captives, the _Menorah_, regarded,
no doubt, by the proud victor as the most characteristic feature of
the destroyed Jewish temple. Yet how strange! It seems to be almost a
foreboding of the future dominion of the vanquished over the
vanquisher. Israel's state, with its temple, Israel's nationality was
trampled under foot by the Roman legions--Israel's religion remained
unconquered, the light of its truth remained undimmed; nay, it grew
brighter and stronger until the world was filled with its splendor.
Little did the Emperor Vespasian dream, when he granted Rabbi Johanan
ben Zakkai, the Jewish maker of learning, the privilege of building a
schoolhouse at Jamnia as a substitute for the hall of the judiciary in
the temple at Jerusalem, that this sanctuary of the Jewish law and
what it represents would by far eclipse all the power and greatness
of the Roman civilization. Yet this was symbolized by the Menorah.
Whether originally intended or not, it was the emblem of Israel's
mission of light. It indicated the task of the Jew, when scattered
over the wide globe, to be a light to the nations, the religious
luminary to the world. And if we be permitted to give a special
meaning to the seven arms of light of the Golden Candlestick, we might
find therein a suggestion of the lights of truth, justice and purity,
or holiness, on the one side, and the lights of law, literature, and
art, or wisdom, on the other, while the light in the center stands for
religion, from which all the other lights emanated and for which the
Jew throughout the centuries lived, suffered, and died, to preserve
intact as mankind's highest treasure to the very end of history.
These ideas I would offer as greeting to the editors and readers of
the Menorah Journal. The name "Menorah" was aptly chosen by the
founders of the pioneer Menorah Society with a view to the two-fold
task of the light-bearer, to enlighten a surrounding world, and to
foster self-respect in the hearts of the Jewish students by spreading
the light of Jewish knowledge among them. Now, if I understand
correctly the purpose of starting a Journal as the organ of the
Intercollegiate Menorah Association, it is to give to these endeavors
a more permanent and classical literary form, and thus successfully
defend the cause of Judaism. Wishing this enterprise all success and
Godspeed, I venture to express the hope that true to its name Menorah,
the Journal will become a real banner-bearer of light not only
dispelling clouds of doubt and of prejudice within and outside of our
camp, but also aiming to spread the truth of Judaism in all its
spiritual force and grandeur. Not nationalism, which in these days of
a cruel world-war with its barbarism puts our much-vaunted modern
civilization to everlasting shame and which has split the Jewish
people also into warring camps, but Judaism as a religion, which
notwithstanding the differences of its various wings as to form is in
its essentials and fundamentals one, should be the watchword, for it
is the light of the Torah that is both law and learning, religion and
culture, which is to unify and consolidate all the forces of American
Israel.
[Illustration: Signature: Dr. K. Kohler]
_From Irving Lehman_
_Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York_
[Illustration]
I CONGRATULATE the members of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association
upon the fact that in their Journal they are obtaining a new
instrument to carry forward their work of bringing to the Jewish youth
knowledge of the old ideals and lessons of the Jewish past. During
these dreadful days, the Jewish students of almost every country
except America have been called from study, and preparation for a life
of usefulness, into pitiless war and useless destruction. The
oppressed in Russia, the student in Germany, and the free Englishman,
all have answered the call to arms of the country in which they live,
and each is fighting, firm in the belief that he is defending his
Fatherland against foreign aggression. The loyalty shown by our
brethren even in those countries where their treatment might well have
furnished at least an explanation for disloyalty, is a new
demonstration of the ancient spirit of devotion to their ideals which,
I believe, has always been the true spirit of the Jews. But the ideal
of national physical strength is not the ideal which we Jews had when
we were a nation and which we must strive to make the ideal of the
modern nations in which we live. Dark though these present days are,
yet humanity must progress into the light of a permanent peace, and
though the Jews are doing their full share of the fighting in this war
brought on by their rulers, we must do more than our share in bringing
to its fruition the ancient prophecy: "For the law shall go forth from
Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge many
people and rebuke strong nations, and they shall beat their swords
into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall
not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any
more."
The voice of this Journal may be only a weak, small voice, but if that
voice speaks in the spirit of the prophet and brings home to us the
worth of the prophetic ideals, it may well prove an important factor
in enabling Israel to fulfill its mission as a messenger of peace to
all the nations.
[Illustration: Signature: Irving Lehman]
_From Julian W. Mack_
_Judge of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals_
[Illustration]
MY hopes are high that the Menorah Journal may prove a valuable means
not only of linking together the Menorah Societies of the country but
also of bringing to the individual members a clearer conception of the
culture, ideals and traditions of the Jews, thereby increasing their
interest in all things Jewish.
This would inevitably tend to strengthen the religious faith of the
Jewish members and to awaken in all of the members a keener and a more
intelligent appreciation of the contribution which Jews and Judaism
have made to human progress.
[Illustration: Signature: Julian W. Mack]
_From Dr. J. L. Magnes_
_Chairman of Executive Committee, Jewish Community (Kehillah) of New
York_
[Illustration]
I SEND hearty greetings to the members of the Intercollegiate Menorah
Association upon the publication of the Journal. If the Journal can be
put upon a sound business basis assuring its permanence, its
publication will mark an important event in the development of Judaism
in America. What we need above all things is sound thinking on Jewish
affairs. I have no doubt that proper action will result from sound
thinking. The Menorah Journal ought to become the medium for
publishing the best thought modern Jewry is capable of. The present
catastrophe overwhelming Europe has conferred upon the Jews in America
the leadership of Jewry. We can assume this historic obligation only
if our theories be clear cut and well thought out.
[Illustration: Signature: J. L. Magnes]
_From Dr. Martin A. Meyer_
_Rabbi of Temple Emanu-El, San Francisco_
[Illustration]
IT is a pleasure to know that a journal is being launched in America
for the benefit of thinking Jews, which will stand between the
technical journal of the "Quarterly" type and outside of the purlieus
of our numerous "Weekly" gossip sheets.
Jewish journalism in America has done little, if anything, to justify
the numerous calls which it makes upon the people for support. On the
other hand, there is sad need for a journal representative of our best
thought, which will be readable and which will represent rather than
misrepresent us.
The field of Jewish culture and ideals surely has not been exhausted
by our European brethren. No matter what they may have contributed to
the exploitation of this field there surely remains ample ground for
the American Jew to express himself in the light of the old standards
of Jewish conduct and belief.
It goes without saying that your Journal will make its primary appeal
to the college man and woman. If successful, it will have saved for
Jewry its most valuable elements and enable us to build in the future
on a better and broader basis than the purely financial and commercial
leadership of the past.
From the far West we join hands with you in the far East and unite in
fervent hopes that the new Menorah Journal may grow from strength to
strength.
[Illustration: Signature: Martin A. Meyer]
_From Dr. David Philipson_
_Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati_
[Illustration]
SOME seventy years ago the celebrated Jewish scholar, Abraham Geiger,
charged the Jewish _intelligenzia_ of his day with indifference
towards Judaism and Jewish interests. This accusation of Geiger's has
since been repeated frequently. But a rift is appearing in the cloud.
To-day as never before our _intelligenzia_ as defined by university
training and education is identifying itself more and more with Jewish
life and aspiration in our country. And I feel that due credit should
be given the Menorah movement in our colleges for this change of
attitude of Jewish students and professors. This movement, still
young, has accomplished much in bringing together the young men and
women who form our intellectual elite into associations for the study
of Jewish history and the consideration of Jewish problems. It has
awakened an interest in Jewish matters in many who have been lukewarm
and indifferent. It has brought as lecturers to our colleges Jewish
men of light and leading from many communities, who have voiced their
messages and given food for thought to the future leaders now sitting
on university benches.
The call of the ages sounds to the intellectual nobility of our day
and generation. Learning has been extolled among Jews from earliest
times, and the wise man has been the accredited leader, so that it was
declared that "the wise man is greater than the prophet." I would have
the learned classes come again into their own. I would have our
university men in coming years the staunchest Jews in the community
through their intelligent interest in everything that makes for its
highest welfare.
To achieve this is the task of our university men. The possibility of
this achievement I see in such significant signs as the Menorah
movement, the institution of student congregations, and the launching
of this magazine by the Intercollegiate Menorah Association. What has
been called the "Jewish consciousness," a term which has done yeoman's
service during the past decade, is being aroused through these
agencies to an even greater degree. This aroused Jewish feeling will,
I am sure, be translated into active service more and more as the
years pass and the present generation of college men carve out their
careers in our communities throughout the country. This is the great
Jewish opportunity of the present generation; in this will they
reverse, such is my hope and my belief, that condition and that
attitude of the Jewish _intelligenzia_ in the past (and still largely
in the present) which evoked the statement of Abraham Geiger. May this
new undertaking prosper so that the young generation whom this
magazine represents may be helped toward a realization of its ideals,
and become an inspiration to all Jewry throughout the length and
breadth of the land.
[Illustration: Signature: David Philipson]
_From Dr. Solomon Schechter_
_President of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America_
[Illustration]
I WISH to send my hearty congratulations to the Intercollegiate
Menorah Association upon their undertaking the publication of the
Menorah Journal, which I have no doubt will prove greatly helpful in
promoting the knowledge of Judaism among the Jewish college youth. In
a liberal country like ours, with the eagerness of our people for
acquiring knowledge, there never was a lack of Jews in our Colleges
and Universities. But what the Menorah Association will accomplish
with the aid of the Journal is, I hope, to have Judaism also
represented in our seats of learning.
[Illustration: Signature: S. Schechter]
_From Jacob H. Schiff_
[Illustration]
IT is with much satisfaction that I learn of the launching of the
Menorah Journal, to provide an opportunity for a more general spread
of the high ideals of the Menorah Societies among our college youth.
When I received some time ago a copy of the publication entitled "The
Menorah Movement," I noted with particular pleasure the progress the
Menorah Societies had already made. After an attentive perusal of the
contents of this publication, I felt as if a copy ought to be placed
in the hands of every Jewish college and university student, and I
myself distributed a number of copies for propaganda purposes. The
Menorah Societies are to be congratulated upon their new venture in
issuing the Journal, upon which I wish them every success. It is to be
hoped that the Menorah Journal will help the Jewish student to
understand what Judaism means and what as Jews we should strive for to
become useful and worthy citizens of this country. We shall have to
face increasing problems because of the deplorable war in Europe,
which so tragically affects our co-religionists there, and it will
require much devotion and understanding on our part to properly deal
with the conditions which will necessarily arise. The Menorah Journal
should freely discuss these conditions, so as to inspire its readers
with the desire to aid and the courage needed in the situation which
is facing us. Thus, by "spreading light," the Journal can greatly
assist the Menorah movement, and render efficient service in and
outside of the university. Let me wish Godspeed to your new
publication and its managers.
[Illustration: Signature: Jacob H. Schiff]
_From Dr. Stephen S. Wise_
_Rabbi of the Free Synagogue, New York_
[Illustration]
I REJOICE to learn of the establishment of an organ by the Menorah
Association. The Menorah Journal will, I take it, serve the threefold
purpose of keeping the various groups of the Menorah throughout the
universities of the land in constant touch with one another, of
interpreting the ideals of the Menorah to widening circles of the
Jewish youth, and of confirming anew, from time to time, the loyalty
of the Menorah men to the Menorah ideal.
A truly great Jew said about fifteen years ago that a high
self-reverence had transformed _arme Judenjungen_ into _stolze junge
Juden_. I believe that the Menorah movement in this land is in part
the cause and in other part the token of a transformation among young
American Jews to-day parallel to that cited by Theodor Herzl. It marks
a sea-change from the self pitying Jewish youth, immeasurably "sorry
for himself" because of his exclusion from certain dominantly
unfraternal groups, to the Jewish youth self-regarding, in the highest
sense of the term, self-knowing, self-revering. That the
self-respecting young Jew command the respect of the world without is
of minor importance by the side of the outstanding fact that he has
ceased to measure himself by the values which he imagined the
unfriendly elements of the world without had set upon him.
The Menorah movement is welcome as a proof of a new order in the life
of the young college Jew. He has come to see at last that it is comic,
in large part, to be shut out from the Greek letter fraternities of
the Hellenes and the Barbarians, but that it is tragic, in large part,
to shut himself out from the life of his own people. For it is from
his own people that he must draw his vision and spiritual sustenance
if he is to live a life of self-mastery rather than the life of a
contemptible parasite rooted nowhere and chameleonizing everywhere.
Time was when their fellow-Jews half excused the college men, who
drifted away from the life of Israel, as if the burden of the Jewish
bond were too much for the untried and unrobust shoulders of our
Jewish college men, as if their intellectual and moral squeamishness
led to inevitable revolt against association with their much-despised
and wholly misunderstood Jewish fellows. Now we see, and our younger
brothers of the Menorah fellowship have caught the vision, that no Jew
can be truly cultured who Jewishly uproots himself, that the man who
rejects the birthright of inheritance of the traditions of the
earliest and virilest of the cultured peoples of earth is
impoverishing his very being. The Jew who is a "little Jew" is less of
a man.
The Menorah lights the path for the fellowship of young Israel, finely
self-reverencing. Long be that rekindled light undimmed!
[Illustration: Signature: Stephen S. Wise]