[Illustration: _HARRY WOLFSON (Harvard A. B. and A. M. 1912), a member
of the Harvard Menorah Society since 1908, was the Hebrew poet at the
annual Harvard Menorah dinners for four years, and won the Harvard
Menorah prize in 1911 for an essay on "Maimonides and Halevi: A Study
in Typical Jewish Attitudes Toward Greek Philosophy in the Middle
Ages." On graduating from Harvard he received honors in Semitics and
Philosophy, and was appointed to a Sheldon Traveling Fellowship. As
Sheldon Fellow he spent two years abroad, studying in the University
of Berlin and doing research work in the libraries of Munich, Paris,
the Vatican, Parma, the British Museum, Oxford and Cambridge. The
present article is based upon the impressions he gathered during this
period. He is now pursuing graduate studies in Semitics and Philosophy
at Harvard._]
THE Jewish student is no longer a _déraciné_. Deeply rooted to the
soil of Jewish reality, he is like the best of the academic youth of
other nations responsive to the needs of his own people. If in spots
he is still groping in the dark, he is no longer a lone, stray
wanderer, but is seeking his way out to light in the company of
kindred souls. A comprehensive and exhaustive study of native Jewish
student bodies in countries like England, Germany, Austria, France and
Italy, as well as of the Russian Jewish student colonies strewn all
over Western Europe, would bring out, in the most striking manner,
contrasting tendencies in modern Jewry. But that is far from the
direct purpose of this brief paper. As a student and traveler in
various European countries during the years 1912-1914 I had the
opportunity of observing Jewish student life and Jewish conditions in
general abroad, and it is merely a few random impressions of certain
aspects of these European conditions that I have here gathered
together for the readers of the Menorah Journal.
_In England_
JUDAISM in England, though of recent origin, is completely
domesticated. The Jewish gentleman is becoming as standardized as the
type of English gentleman. But more insular than the island itself,
Anglo-Jewry, as a whole, prefers to remain within its natural
boundaries, and is disinclined to become the bearer of the white Jew's
burden. Two of her great Jews, indeed, had embarked upon a scheme of
Jewish empire building. The attempts of both of them, however, ended
in a fizzle, for one was an unimaginative philanthropic squire, and
the other is an interpreter of the dreamers, himself too wide-awake to
become a master of dreams.
Yet within its own narrow limits, Anglo-Jewry is active enough to keep
in perfect condition. Over-exertion, however, is avoided. Cricket
Judaism is played according to the rules of the game, and the players
are quite comfortable in their flannels. The established synagogue of
Mulberry Street is as staid and sober as the Church of England, the
liberalism preached in Berkeley Street as gentle and unscandalizing as
the nonconformity of the City Temple, and the orthodoxy of the United
Synagogue as innocuously papish as the last phases of the Oxford
movement.
In England it is quite fashionable to admit Judaism into the parlor.
Parlor Judaism, to be sure, is not more vital a force nor more
creative than kitchen Judaism, but it seems to be more vital than the
Judaism restricted to the Temple. At least it is voluntary and
personal, and, what is more important, it is engaging. So engrossed in
the subject of his discussion was once my host at tea, that while
administering the sugar he asked me quite absent-mindedly: "Would you
have one or two lumps in your Judaism?" "Thank you, none at all," was
my reply. "But I am wont to take my Judaism somewhat stronger, if you
please."
_Jewish Student Groups at Oxford and Cambridge_
AS compared with ourselves, English Jews have a long tradition behind
them, in which they glory. That tradition does not at present seem to
stand any imminent danger of being interrupted. The younger generation
follow in the footprints of the older. Nowhere is there so narrow a
rift between Jewish fathers and sons as in England. Hence you do not
find there any prominent organization of the young. Last winter an
anonymous appeal for the organization of the Jewish students in
England ran for several weeks in the _Jewish Chronicle_, but it seems
to have resulted in nothing.
Independent local organizations of Jewish students, however, are to be
found in almost every university in England. In Oxford and Cambridge
they are organized in congregations, having Synagogues of their own,
in which the students assemble for prayer on every Friday night and
Saturday morning. In Cambridge they hold two services, an orthodox and
a liberal, both well attended. In Oxford they have recently published
a special prayer book of their own, suitable for the needs of all
kinds of students, it being a medley of orthodoxy and liberalism,
which if rather indiscriminate in its theology is, on the whole, made
up with good common sense. English liberal Judaism, it should be
observed, is markedly different from its corresponding cults in
Germany and in the United States. In Germany, reformed Judaism has its
nascence in free thought, and it aims to appeal to the intellectual.
With us liberalism is stimulated by our pragmatic evaluation of
religion, and is held out as a bait to the indifferent. In England it
arises from the growing admiration on the part of a certain class of
Jews for what they consider the inwardness and the superior morality
of Christianity, and is concocted as a cure to those who are so
affected. As a result, English liberal Judaism is more truly religious
than the German, and more sincerely pious than the American. In a
sermon delivered before the Oxford congregation, a young layman of the
Liberal Synagogue of London apostrophized liberal Judaism as the
safeguard of the modern Jews from the attractiveness of the superior
teachings of Christ.
_Social Service Work of Jewish Students_
ENGLAND is the classic home of old-fashioned begging and of
old-fashioned giving. You are stopped for a penny everywhere and by
everybody, from the tramp who asks you to buy him a cup of tea, to the
hospital which solicits a contribution to its maintenance "for one
second." Pavement artists abound in Paris as much as in London, but in
Paris it is a Bohemian-looking denizen of the "Quartier" posing as a
pinched genius forced to sell his crayon masterpieces for a couple of
sous, whereas in London it is always a crippled ex-soldier trying to
arouse your pity in chalked words for a "poor man's talent." But
England is also the classic home of modern social service of every
description. The Salvation Army had its origin in London, where also
Toynbee Hall, the first University settlement of its kind, came into
existence. Likewise among the Jews, there are, on the one hand, the
firmly established old-fashioned charitable institutions to help the
"alien" brethren of the East End, and on the other hand, there are
also the equally well organized boys' clubs for the "uplifting" of the
"alien" little brethren of the same East End.
The Jewish University men in England take an active interest in both
these branches of philanthropy. It was a fortunate coincidence that
when I came to Oxford the Jewish students there had among them a
social worker of the latter type, who had come to make arrangements
for the reception of a squad of Whitechapel boys who were under his
tutelage. When I afterwards went to Cambridge I found there a delegate
of some charitable board of the London Jewish community, seeking to
enlist the aid of the Jewish students in his work.
_What the Bulletin Boards Told at Berlin_
AT the University of Berlin I did not have to go far to find traces of
the presence of Jewish students. With their far-famed efficiency the
Germans have contrived to turn the large university hall into a medium
of information more adequate than our University Bulletins and
Registers combined. The bulletin boards covering every vacant spot on
the walls told me the story of all the phases of Jewish activities in
the University, professional, social, vocational and, if you please,
also gastronomical, more fully than the frescoed walls of Dido's
temple told their story to pious Æneas. In the announcement of courses
by the various faculties, well-known Jewish names stand out quite
prominently,--none of them above the rank of Honorar-Professor, to be
sure, but in popularity and achievement they are among the foremost.
Among the long rows of the variegated Wappen of the Korporationen, the
Borussias, Teutonias and Germanias, there hang the insignia of the
Jewish students' societies, the yellow and white of the Sprevia and
the black and gold of the Hasmonea, both announcing the dates of their
Kneipe held in their respective places in the students' quarters
around Linienstrasse and Charlottenburg. In another nook of the hall,
from the midst of a jumble of little slips of paper enumerating in
minute detail in microscopic German script what dishes are offered at
the paltry sum of so many pfennig in the various "Privat-Mittagtische"
and "bürgerliche-Küche" there looms up unblushingly, proud in the
clearness of its square characters, the Hebrew word כשר over the
notice of a Lebanon restaurant run by a Palestinian Jew. Still further
on the wall, students of unmistakably Jewish names offer instruction
in almost all the languages spoken, while a German young lady wants to
exchange lessons in Russian with an _orthodox Christian_ and one who
hails from the mendacious little country, cautiously states, as an
inducement to a prospective pupil in the Roumanian tongue, that the
would-be instructor is a _true_ Roumanian. Here you have a picture of
Jewish life in the Berlin University, in its outer paraphernalia, in
its cosmopolitan character, in its relation to the rest of the student
body, in its freedom and restriction, as portrayed in the unjaundiced
tales of bulletin boards.
_The Opposing Views of Student Societies at Berlin_
OF the two Jewish organizations mentioned above, the Hasmonea is a
branch of the inter-varsity K. Z. V. (Kartell Zionistischer
Verbindungen), whereas the Sprevia belongs to the K.-C.
(Kartell-Convent der Tendenzverbindungen deutscher Studenten jüdischen
Glaubens). The former, as the name implies, is Zionistic; the latter
is opposed to Zionism. Their relation to each other, however, is not
like that between the Menorah and the Zionist societies in American
colleges. The Hasmonea and the Sprevia are mutually exclusive, rather
than complementary to each other. The German Jewish student does not
come to the university with a mind open and free as to Judaism. He
comes there with definite views on the subject which have already been
crystallized under the influence of early training. Judaism, of
whatever shade it may happen to be, is more potent a factor in the
domestic life of German Jews and in the bringing up of the young than
it is with us here. Jewish boys there evince a keener interest in
Judaism than do Jewish boys in America. Their intelligent
understanding of Judaism is therefore not necessarily preceded by a
period of indifference and lack of knowledge. It steadily grows and
develops with them from their early youth. And so by the time they
enter the university, at an age somewhat older than that of our
average freshman, their Jewish consciousness is mature and fixed. They
are able to judge whether they can work for or against Zionism, for to
them Zionism is the only vital question in present-day Judaism, a
question which they are willing to face squarely and once for all
determine their position towards it; and it is on this question of
Zionism and the future destiny of the Jews as a nation that the two
leading student organizations radically differ.
There is another quite as notable distinction between our Menorah and
the Jewish students' organizations in Germany. With us the Menorah is
primarily an undergraduate society. When graduate Menorah Societies
arise, they may be confederated with the undergraduate organization,
but they will of course retain their separate character. In Germany
this distinction between undergraduate and graduate does not exist.
Matriculation in the University, not the taking of a degree in it,
introduces one into the society of the educated with its appellative
"intellectual" corresponding to our "high-brow" rather than to our
"college grad." Joining the membership of a student organization marks
the entrance into that large class of "intellectuals." And once you
join such an organization you are a member ever after. In Germany, in
fact, nobody graduates from a university in the same sense that we do.
There the taking of a degree is merely an episode. If you take it, you
will thenceforth be addressed as "Herr Doktor"; if you do not take it,
you will keep on printing on your visiting card "Kandidat Philosophie"
all the rest of your lifetime, and be addressed by the uninitiate as
"Herr Doktor" just the same. Thus the achievements generally ascribed
to Jewish students' organizations in Germany are in reality the
collective work of all the Jewish men of academic training, and not
necessarily of students actually engaged in university studies. Read
over the names of contributors to publications issued by what are
known as "student organizations," and you will notice how loosely that
term is used.
_Intellectual Problems of the German Jewish Youth_
THE Jewish university men in Germany, whom we commonly call Jewish
students, take more interest in Jewish life than do our university men
in this country. This is chiefly due to the peculiar position of the
modern Jews in Germany. German Jewry, by the total disappearance of
its laboring class during recent times, has ceased to be a people by
itself and has become a part of the middle class of the general German
population. Among the native Jews of Germany, if Berlin is to be
taken as a typical example of Jewish communities in large cities,
there is no organic social body, complete in itself, consisting of
various classes, following all imaginable trades, ranging from the
chimney-sweep and the cobbler to the merchant prince. Such
communities, forming organic wholes in themselves, you may find in
Russia, Galicia, Roumania, and in the newer Jewish settlements of
England and America. You do not find them in Germany. Higher up in the
social scale, Jews are represented everywhere, but lower down you
cannot find any native Jew below a shop clerk or master tailor. Being
thus interspersed among the middle class of the general population,
that part of the population which more than any other sends its
children to universities, the number of academically trained men
engaged in liberal professions among the German Jews is exceedingly
large. These professional Jews encounter greater difficulties in their
careers than those engaged in commerce. While the latter are given
free range for the development of the native Jewish talents, the
former find their road toward recognition blockaded. Consequently they
are hurled back upon their Judaism, and their energies not finding
vent elsewhere turn into Jewish channels.
The activities of Jewish university men in Germany are chiefly
literary and intellectual, for the problem with which they are faced
is quite different from that of ours. With us the problem of
Americanism and Judaism is in its ultimate analysis the possible
conflict between two sets of social duties, in themselves not
necessarily contradictory, which can be easily reconciled by a working
program adjusting the practical demands of both without curtailing the
scope and efficiency of either. For Americanism in the abstract has no
existence. The American mind is as yet unknown in its essence; it is
only manifest by its functions, of which Jewish activities may form a
complementary part. In Germany it is quite different. If Germanism
stand for Aryanism and Occidentalism, Judaism must inevitably stand
for Semitism and Orientalism,--and can the twain ever meet? That the
Jew manifests in his works and actions good practical patriotism does
not radically solve the problem; that the Jews are capable of being
good patriots is no longer questioned, but can they be genuine ones?
Will not the Jews always remain the carriers of an alien culture,
unabsorbable and unassimilable, despite their conversion and
intermarriage? It is this problem that confronts the Jewish
intellectuals in Germany, in the over-hanging shadow of which the
"Sorrows of the Jewish Werther" was written, and the martyrdom of Otto
Weininger, self-inflicted, was made possible. Hence the great
introspective literary activity of the German Jewish youth.
There is, on the one hand, the great, ever-increasing inrush of the
Jews into the inmost sanctum of German cultural life, where their
Germanic protestations are more vociferous than those of the native
Teuton,--and they sometimes have, too, as must be admitted, a false
ring. Ludwig Fulda openly proclaims that as to his relation with
Judaism there is none: Goethe is his Moses and the German war of
liberation is his Exodus; and Jewish "Gymnasium" seniors inundate the
columns of the _Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums_ with introspective
analyses of their Teutonic souls. On the other hand, there are those
who, while quite as good Germans as the others, so far as practical
patriotism is concerned, do not renounce the intellectual and
spiritual heritage which is their own. Their self-imposed task is
therefore the cultivation, enrichment, and modernization of Jewish
thought and tradition. Hence the great output of highly meritorious
literary works on purely Jewish subjects which, if not as scholarly as
those of the German Jewish scientists of the past generation, are far
more stimulating and of greater educational value.
(_To be concluded_)
_IT may interest you to know that in this country,
during the early years of our leading universities,
Hebrew not only formed, a subject of instruction, but
also appeared upon the Commencement programs. Upon
such grandiloquent occasions you will find that side
by side with a poem in Greek there figured a speech in
Hebrew. What the Hebrew was like that was poured out
there I have difficulty in imagining. But that the
instruction was of much use to the student, I have
grave reasons to doubt. Will you allow me to read to
you a note written in regard to that famous professor
of Hebrew at Yale towards the end of the eighteenth
century--Ezra Stiles. Stiles was a very learned
Christian Hebraist. One of his pupils wrote about him:
"For Hebrew he possessed a high veneration. He said
one of the Psalms he tried to teach us would be the
first we should hear sung in Heaven, and that he
should be ashamed that any one of his pupils should be
entirely ignorant of that holy language."_--_From a
Menorah Address by Professor Richard Gottheil._