=The International Students' Reunion=
THE Intercollegiate Menorah Association was represented at the
International Students' Reunion, which was held in connection with the
Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco, the
University of California, and Leland Stanford University, under the
auspices of Corda Fratres Association of Cosmopolitan Clubs, from
August 16th to 21st, 1915. Intercollegiate Vice-President Milton D.
Sapiro read a paper at the session in the Civic Auditorium, San
Francisco, on "The Purposes of the Menorah Movement," submitted by the
Chancellor. Dr. Horace M. Kallen, of the University of Wisconsin,
delivered a discourse at the session at Stanford University on "The
Hebraic Spirit." The following is an abstract of his address:
_Dr. Kallen on "The Hebraic Spirit"_
"A people's spirit is its character, considered not as a cluster of
qualities, but as a spring and form of action--action that expresses
itself in social institutions, in political and economic organization,
in art, in religion and in philosophy; in short, in all that
expressive part of human life we call culture. A people's culture is
organic. However varied its form and media, the varieties springing
from a single source possess an identical and unique quality which is
the quality of that source. They express and reveal it, as generative
power, a force of creation, having good or evil bearing upon the
residual civilization. The process of such revelation is a people's
total history; just as the process of revelation of an individual's
character is his total biography. To find the Hebraic spirit we must
seek its substantial development in the culture and ideals of the
Jewish people--in the unfoldment, in the history of their common
attitude toward the world and toward man, in their theory of life.
"The Jewish theory of life involves three fundamental conceptions,
interdependent, and forming a unit which has no near parallel in
civilization.
"The first of these conceptions defines the nature of God. What is
significant about it is the fact that it makes no distinction between
God and Nature. God is Nature and Nature is God. The two are related
to each other as a force and its operation, and what difference there
exists between them is a difference in completeness and
self-sufficiency, not in kind. God reveals himself thus in and as the
cause of Nature, the whirlwind, the process of life and decay, the
development of history. His essence is Change, Force, Time. There is
hence no Hebrew word for eternal; God's attitude is everlasting. That
is, that which changes yet retains its identity, as a man changes from
infancy to manhood, yet retains his identity.
"God is one, all-inclusive, everlastingly creative. In consequence,
there exists a real distinction between God and man, such that the one
cannot be defined in analogy with anything human. Neither wisdom, nor
goodness, nor justice apply to him; yet the goodness, wisdom and
justice of man depend upon him. Man is a finite speck set over against
divine infinitude. His life is a constant struggle for survival with
forces which have each an equal claim on divine regard with man. Man's
salvation, herein, consists in knowing these facts, in understanding,
using them, and guarding against them. The fear of the Lord, sings the
chorus in Job, is the beginning of wisdom, and to depart from evil is
understanding.
"To depart from evil is to act as a social being, to be righteous.
Righteousness is acknowledgment of the value and integrity of other
persons. It is the application of justice in all fields of human
endeavor, particularly in fundamental economics. Thus the three
historic constitutions of the Jewish state, the Covenant, Deuteronomy
and the Levitical code, are all directed toward making impossible
other than natural inequalities within the state. Their intention is a
social democracy; and all Jewish law, departing from this fundamental
intention, aims, under various conditions, to realize it. The
prophets, from Amos to Isaiah, preach it; and men like Ferdinand
Lassalle, Karl Marx, Jean de Bloch, simply enhance their tradition.
"The Hebraic spirit carries the principle of democracy beyond the
individual to the group. Men having a common ancestry, history,
culture and ideals, living a common life, have definite contribution
to make to civilization as a group. They constitute a nationality and
the principles of justice that apply among individuals must apply
equally among nationalities. Hence Hebraism, through its prophets,
formulates the conception of an internationalism, consisting of a
co-operative democracy of nationalities, under conditions of universal
peace. The great Isaiah, who flourished in the fifth century B. C., is
the first to formulate this national vision. His people have never
departed from it. In terms of it, they have been the foremost
protagonists of a constructive internationalism, in every land and at
all times. Recently, as they have begun to find that their service to
civilization as a people grows more and more impaired by the Diaspora,
they have formulated a program of national reconcentration in
Palestine, and of the free development there of Hebraic culture and
ideals such as all European peoples carry out in their own homelands
of their culture and ideals. This program is called Zionism. It is the
practical and most expressive incarnation of the Hebraic Spirit."
=California Menorah Society=
THE California Menorah Society met on Monday evening, August 30th, for
its first meeting of the college year. There was an attendance of 125.
Mr. Louis I. Newman gave a short talk on the aims of the Menorah
movement. Milton D. Sapiro, first President of the California Menorah
and now the second Vice-President of the Intercollegiate Menorah
Association, spoke on the history of the movement, tracing the
development of the Menorah idea and the formation of the
Intercollegiate body; and in closing he presented Stanley Arndt, now
President of the Society, with a bronze Menorah, which is to be handed
down from President to President each year. President Arndt, in
accepting the Menorah, said that it suggested the great problem that
the Jews are now facing. The great question at the present time is
whether this Menorah will be a mere symbol of the past glories, the
past achievements of the Jews, whether it is to be a mere monument of
a dying race, or the living emblem of a living race, the soul of a
living people. As an exponent of the latter doctrine, he introduced
Dr. Horace M. Kallen of the University of Wisconsin, Intercollegiate
Menorah Lecturer.
Dr. Kallen spoke on "The Jews and the Great War." He pointed out that
democracy in its essence was the liberation of individuality; that by
being most one's self, a person or a nation does the most for his
neighbors. First of all, therefore, we should know ourselves. Dr.
Kallen then took up the condition of the Jews in Russia. He discussed
the frightful persecutions there as the result of a great anti-Jewish
conspiracy to cover up the graft, the corruption and the inefficiency
of the government. He spoke on the great drive of the Jews from the
Pale by the military authorities and then the drive back again by the
civil authorities. This, he pointed out, involved not only a Jewish
problem, but a great international one besides. The second phase of
the Jewish question was that of a free Jewish life in Palestine. There
the Jewish colonists have practically an autonomy of their own; they
have established a Jewish stage, Jewish art, Jewish music; and the
colonies were founded upon a social democratic basis, upon the same
fundamental conceptions of social democracy that the Hebrew Prophets
had preached. Dr. Kallen concluded with a plea for the Jew's double
responsibility. The Jew commits a crime hot only as a citizen but as a
Jew. The Jews who in length of service to the world are surely an
aristocracy must carry this responsibility.
In the discussion which followed, Professor Simon Litman of Illinois,
who was present, took part.
A Menorah prize of $50. was announced at this meeting. The judges will
be Professor William Popper and Dr. Martin A. Meyer of the Semitics
Department of the University, and Judge Max Sloss of the Supreme Court
of California.
A musical program, followed by an informal reception to the new
members, completed the evening.
N. M. Lyon, the Treasurer of the Intercollegiate, formerly of
Cincinnati, is now a student at California and a member of the
California Menorah.
=Dr. Kallen on the Pacific Coast=
BESIDES his address at the opening meeting of the California Menorah
Society and other informal talks with the students, Dr. Kallen
delivered a series of three addresses at the University of California,
under the auspices of the Department of Philosophy, on the general
subject: "The Hebraic Tradition in Europe." On August 31st, he
lectured upon "The Rise and Significance of the Hebraic Tradition"; on
September 1st, "Hebraism and Democracy"; and September 2nd, "Hebraism
and Art."
On August 30th, Dr. Kallen met a company of graduates and other
public-spirited Jewish citizens in San Francisco at luncheon and
explained the purposes and activities of the Intercollegiate Menorah
Association.
Dr. Kallen addressed the Menorah Society of the University of
Washington in Seattle on August 14th, on "The Jewish Question and the
Great War." He also met at a dinner a company of graduates and other
public-spirited Jewish citizens in Seattle, and explained to them the
purposes and activities of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association.
=Dr. Harry Wolfson of Harvard=
HARRY AUSTRYN WOLFSON, the author of the articles on "Jewish Students
in European Universities," published in the first two numbers of the
Journal, has been appointed Instructor in Jewish Literature and
Philosophy at Harvard University. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard
last June in the field of Semitic Philology, his thesis subject being
"Crescas on the Problems of Infinity and Divine Attributes."
During the ensuing year he will give the following courses:
Post-Biblical Hebrew, Jewish Aramaic, Jewish Literature and Life From
the Second to the End of the Seventeenth Century, and An Introduction
to Medieval Jewish Philosophy.
=Cornell Summer Meeting=
ON August 8, 1915, the Cornell Menorah Society held a meeting for the
summer students. There was an attendance of about 50, both Jews and
non-Jews. Rev. Dr. H. P. Mendes, of New York, gave an address on
"Bible Ideals in Modern Times," and Professor Frank Carney of Denison
University, Professor of Industrial Geography in the Cornell Summer
School, spoke on "The Inorganic Basis of the Hebrew Contribution to
the World." Professor W.A. Hurwitz of Cornell spoke briefly on the
scope of the Menorah movement, and Dr. L. L. Silverman played Kol
Nidre on the violin.
=Hunter Menorah Society=
THE Menorah Society of Hunter College, in New York City, begins its
third year with a marked increase in the enthusiasm and the number of
its members. A program dealing with various phases of Hebrew culture
has been planned for the regular monthly meetings, comprising lectures
on the Bible, the Talmud, Medieval Hebrew Poetry, Modern Hebrew
Literature, Hebrew Music, and Hebrew Art. In addition, the Society
hopes to present a pageant and a reception to freshmen in February
(for Hunter College admits two classes during the year). The lectures
will be preceded by refreshments, and the singing of Hebrew songs by
the Menorah Glee Club.
Besides the regular monthly meetings, the Society is organizing
courses in conversational Hebrew, Bible Study, and Zionism--the first
to meet weekly, the others on alternate weeks.
It is also hoped to have a general informal meeting every week to
discuss modern Jewish problems in connection with the reading of
various newspapers and periodicals.
=College of the City of New York=
THE Menorah Society of the College of the City of New York closed its
activities during the past year with a very interesting meeting held
on May 20, 1915. Rev. Dr. H. Pereira Mendes spoke on "Jewish Ideals of
Peace," and he was introduced by the new President of the College, Dr.
Sidney Edward Mezes, who presided. Dr. Mezes has come to City College
from the University of Texas, and it is gratifying to note that he had
already been made familiar with the Menorah work through the Texas
Menorah Society.
The new year was opened with a forum meeting on September 21st, in the
Menorah alcove, when the Chancellor addressed a number of new men as
well as old, upon the significance and the increasing scope of the
Menorah movement. The week beginning October 3rd will be known as
"Menorah Week" at the College. On Monday, October 4th, the study
circles will meet for the first time; on Tuesday there will be another
meeting of the Menorah forum; on Wednesday a semi-annual smoker will
be held in the City College Club; and on Thursday, Mr. Marcus M.
Marks, President of the Borough of Manhattan, will deliver a lecture
to the student body under the auspices of the Menorah Society.
=Fourth Annual Convention=
IMPORTANT matters touching the development of Intercollegiate
activities, the work and membership of the constituent Societies, the
association of graduates with the Intercollegiate body, the problems
and plans of THE MENORAH JOURNAL, will be among the subjects presented
for discussion and decision at the Fourth Menorah Convention, to be
held during the coming mid-winter recess. The precise days and place
of the Convention will shortly be decided by the Administrative
Council, in accordance with Article II, Section 4, of the
Intercollegiate Constitution. In addition to the business sessions
there will also be a formal dinner and an academic session devoted to
the reading of papers by eminent scholars. It is hoped that a large
number of Menorah men and women from all parts of the country will be
able to attend. Further details will be published in the next number
of the JOURNAL.
=Informal Gathering of Menorah Officers=
ON June 21, 1915, there was an informal gathering at the headquarters
of the Intercollegiate Association, 600 Madison Avenue, New York City,
of Menorah officers who happened to be in New York. There were
present, besides the Chancellor, President I. Leo Sharfman,
Vice-President Abraham J. Feldman, and Secretary Charles K. Feinberg
of the Association, President Stanley Arndt of California, President
Jacob Rubinoff of Pennsylvania, ex-President Leon J. Rosenthal of
Cornell, ex-President George J. Horowitz, President Moses H. Gitelson,
Treasurer Herman I. Trachman of College of the City of New York,
President Bernard J. Reis of New York University (Washington Square),
ex-President Samuel Sussman of Columbia, President Sarah Berenson,
Vice-President Babette Reinhardt, Treasurer Minnie Weiss, and
Secretary Ernestine P. Franklin and ex-Secretary Julia Mitchell of
Hunter, and Dr. H. M. Kallen of Wisconsin.
There was informal discussion of the activities of the various
Societies, the progress of THE MENORAH JOURNAL, the program of the
next Intercollegiate Convention, and the development of the graduate
phase of the Menorah movement.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
This text uses both today and to-day. Also used were Roumania and
Rumania.