Chapter M: Trumper (2)

There is much in common between the Yankees, whom I represent, and the Jews, and this alone ought to give us a friendly feeling toward one another. We are both misunderstood and caricatured. The Yankee stands for a peculiar sort of closeness in money matters and a shrewdness which has even given its slang name to a neighboring New England State, the "Nutmeg State." Perhaps we have both done too much in the past to deserve this reputation for super-cleverness. One of you has referred to the fact that there are Jews who do not like to acknowledge their race. In that respect we are alike, for there are many Yankees who are ashamed of being known as such. Long years ago, when I was a student in Germany, I was introduced one evening to a young German countess. She said in her broken English, "I am so glad to meet an American. I have heard you have many funny people there, the Dago, the Paddy, the Nigger, and many more; but I have heard that the lowest people there are what they call the 'damn Yankees.' How I would like to see one of them!" This, bear in mind, was soon after our Civil War, and she received her impression of us doubtless from Confederates. I did not have the courage to acknowledge my nationality to her, but diverted the topic to some of the other people she had mentioned.

The old New England Puritan taught sternly. He was a patriarchal head of his family. In my boyhood, Saturday evening or perhaps better Thanksgiving Day, when their descendants all gathered together as long as either of the grandparents lived, we had an illustration of something very like Heine's touching picture of an old Jewish peddler who worked hard through the week, but on Friday night put on his long black coat and his three-cornered hat, lit the seven candles at the table, and told his children and grandchildren how Jehovah had led His people through the wilderness, and how the Egyptians and all the other naughty people who persecuted them were long since dead, while the chosen race survived. And so happy in his race was this poor peddler and so proud of his pedigree that, as Heine says, had the great Rothschild entered at that moment and asked him what favor he could do, he would reply simply: "Stand out of my light, that I may finish telling the law to my children."

_The Eugenics of the Jewish Race_

We Puritans were brought up on the Old Testament, the spirit of which, far more than that of the New, pervaded the life of old New England. Every day after breakfast, no matter how busy the season or how late the breakfast, my grandfather read to the assembled family a chapter from the Old Testament, and perhaps remarked upon certain passages. After graduating from college and when I became a tutor in a prominent Hebrew family in New York, and especially when I had to teach the children their Sunday school lessons and freshen up the small knowledge of the Hebrew language that I had, I realized very keenly how closely related were the Jews to the Yankees,--with this tremendous difference, that you are increasing in numbers while we are decreasing.

As I read the Old Testament, the substance of the covenant with Abraham was that if he kept Jehovah's law, his seed would be multiplied like the stars of Heaven. This placed society and life in that early day squarely on a eugenic basis, for it makes the number and success of good children the supreme test of every human institution, activity, and every kind of culture. This I take it is one of the chief characteristics of your race, and I hope it may long be so.

I am going to avail myself of this opportunity to say a few words about a topic that has for centuries been a point of the very greatest difference and tension between your people and mine, namely, the character and work of Jesus. Please do not be shocked till you hear what I have to say. Such of us psychologists as have recently been interested in the psychological aspect of Jesus' life and work understand, as had never been understood before, how purely Jewish he was. Scholars have lately given to his figure a radically new interpretation.

"_An Extremely Representative Man of Your Race_"

According to many conceptions the chief trait of Jesus was a strong and deep enthusiasm for the loftiest things of life. He was a little ecstatic all the time, illustrating the higher powers of man. His soul was unconquerable by misfortune and disaster, like that of the Jewish race itself. He was also organizing victory out of defeat, and his greatest triumph was over death itself. Some think that his youthful dreams and ideals were to be an agrarian lord of a manor, or a grand country gentleman of the Jewish order, making contracts with servants, leasing out farms and vineyards, giving feasts, and the like, for more than half the parables pertain directly or indirectly to such a vocation. But this youthful dream he was unable on account of poverty and his station in life to realize; so two very natural changes took place in his soul. He came to hate the rich because they were wasting their opportunities and never doing anything; but far more important, he developed from these juvenile reveries his world-transforming ideas of the kingdom, which created the church, visible and invisible, and re-made society.

The Jews are never beaten; if checked in their aspirations they, like the prophets in the days of captivity, strike out in higher and nobler ways. Thus you ought to be proud of Jesus for, as he is now being understood, he was an extremely representative man of your race. The real enemies of the Jews are now claiming that no such man ever lived, which is the view of Drews and his school, some holding that he was a deliberate invention of the early decades of the first century, and others, like Jensen, that he was a revived Babylonian myth. But these new views show that Jesus was not an Aryan, as a few of the pan-Germanists have claimed, but a typical Semite. It does look now, in view of the teachings of such men as Gobineau and various of his successors, that the Aryans are the highest and best people in the world and that the Germans are the very best of all the Aryans, that it is Germany that has come to consider itself the chosen people, the elite, superior race. But certainly Germany is not very Christian. It was only converted in the thirteenth century, and Luther soon threw off the fully developed Christianity of Rome. Since then we have had the Tübingen School, that resolved everything into myth, and the very many other negative points of view expressed in Nietzsche's supremest condemnation of Jesus as a wretched degenerate, while Wagner's deliberate slogan was, "_Das Deutschtum muss das Christentum siegen_."

_The Rapprochement of Jew and Gentile in America_

I wonder if the time is not near at hand when your people will reconstruct your conceptions so much as to recognize Jesus as a typical, golden, Jewish youth, worthy of being an ideal for young men. We certainly do have in his life as now interpreted exactly what youth needs above all things,--ambition, enthusiasm, idealism, all of them absorbing, all of them diverting physical and sensuous energy into the very highest culture sphere, sublimating desire, and making us understand that youth is not complete without a great effort at achievement. The very essence of youth is excitement. There must be tension, strain, a tiptoe attitude, a strong "Excelsior"-like ambition to climb, and a corresponding horror of inferiority, _Miderwertigkeit_. Youth is an age of idealism, and the tension decade of adolescence needs a regimen and an idealization all its own, to set back-fires to temptation. Instead of the current altogether too plain talk on sex hygiene and teaching, we must realize that every enthusiasm or real interest, be it in the multiplication table or in literature, debate, athletics, is an alternative. It reduces temptation and stores up energy as the great reservoirs in the middle west store up the floods that come down from the mountains, so that they shall irrigate and not devastate the land. Jesus, in the new interpretation of Holzmann and Baumann, stands for this kind of enthusiasm.

I cannot but wonder, therefore, whether, in view of these new conceptions, Jew and Gentile are not going to meet in this country and even agree about Jesus. It is difficult at least to see which of us would change most if there were this _rapprochement_. We must neither of us abandon our birthright. We must be the very best Puritan Anglo-Saxons we possibly can, and you must be the best Jews possible, for out of these component elements American citizenship is made up. This country stands for the dropping of old prejudices, such as those that are inflaming Europe now with war. If we can satisfy each other's ideals and meet half way the thing is done, and the melting pot which America stands for has got in its work. I want the Menorah Society to feel that it is in the van of this movement.

"Golden Rule" Hillel

BY MOSES HYAMSON

As the students and teachers in the famous school of Shemaya and Abtalion assembled for worship one wintry Sabbath morning, they were astonished to find their lecture-hall exceptionally dark. On looking up they descried what seemed to be a human form lying prone across the skylight. Willing feet ascended the roof and willing hands swept away the snow from a young lad's half-frozen form. They brought him down, and although it was the holy Sabbath, kindled a fire to revive the chilled body. "Worthy is Hillel," they exclaimed, "that the Sabbath should be desecrated for his sake!"

So runs the Talmudic tale. The incident happened in Palestine in the century before the common era. The boy Hillel had come from his obscure home in Babylon, bent upon study at the most famous school in Palestine, whose teachers, Shemaya and Abtalion, were heads of the Synhedrion, the Supreme Court of Jurisdiction. Poor and proud, Hillel supported himself by manual labor while he was securing his education. Like Abraham Lincoln, he was a woodchopper. One half of the small amount he earned daily served for his meals, and the other half he paid to the porter at the college for his admission in the evening. On this short Friday in mid-winter he had been able to earn nothing, and in his keen anxiety not to miss the lecture and discussion, he clambered to the roof of the college hall, braving snow and cold for the words of the living God as expounded by his teachers.

Within a few short years Hillel himself had succeeded his teachers as the head of this famous school, and also as President of the Synhedrion. Hillel's career is a shining example of the democratic principle which has always prevailed in Jewish life, of the opportunity open to all men of talents, however humble their origin, to achieve position in the republic of Jewish learning. And learning combined with noble character, as in the case of the great Hillel, carried authority in Jewish life. It is true that Hillel was not without letters patent of nobility; though he came from poverty and obscurity and from an alien land, he was, according to tradition, of the blood of David. It is not, however, to this accident of birth, known only later, that Hillel owed his quick rise and supreme eminence in Jewish life, but to his distinguished attainments, to his profound learning not only in the Jewish Law but in many secular fields of knowledge, to his bold and original mind combined with a pious devotion to tradition, to his indomitable energy and industry, his nobility of character, his sympathy with the people and his understanding of their needs.

"_What To Thee Is Hateful Do Not Unto Another_"

It was Hillel who first enunciated the Golden Rule, although in negative form. The story that is told in the Talmud is one of the most familiar; yet no repetition can lessen its point and charm. A heathen, it is related, came to Shammai, the leader of a rival school, requesting to be received into Judaism and instructed in the whole of the religion while he stood upon one leg. Shammai, an architect by profession, threatened the heathen with his builder's measuring rod and drove him out. The man went to Hillel with the same request. Hillel, gentle, patient, democratic, received the man hospitably and answered: "The whole of Judaism can be summarized in one short sentence: 'What to thee is hateful do not unto another.' That is the essence of the whole Torah; the rest is commentary."

And in the interpretation of that "commentary" which, together with the Torah itself, enshrined the spirit of Judaism and made it a throbbing reality in the life of the nation, Hillel brought out the humanity of every regulation, the true intent behind it, whenever literal enforcement would have worked hardship or might have defeated its true intent because of the changed circumstances since its enactment. While keeping faithfully within the spirit of Jewish tradition, Hillel struck out into innovations, new precedents and legal institutions, which testified at once to the remarkable insight and boldness of his mind as a jurist and to his tact and sympathy as a leader of the people. Some of his innovations anticipate in a striking way the developments under similar circumstances of the common law of England and the United States many centuries later.

_Hillel As A Jurist: His Sense of Social Justice_

For example, it happened that the first year after Herod's accession was a Sabbatical year, which, according to the Deuteronomic provision (Deut. 15, 2), set up a Statute of Limitations and effectively barred the recovery of all debts. The people, impoverished by the exactions of the Government and by the failure of the harvest, were compelled to have recourse to money lenders. But those who were able to accommodate the needy were reluctant to do so on account of the imminence of the Sabbatical year and its legal bar to the recovery of past debts. Hillel's keen mind and sympathetic heart found a way out of this difficulty. He set up the institution of the Prosbul, by which a creditor received the right, when making a loan, to register the debt in court. In this way the great jurist anticipated in a remarkable manner a principle accepted so many centuries later in the common law of England and America, namely, that the Statute of Limitations does not apply to recorded judgments. Such judgments can always be sued on and recovered. And so the new ordinance established by Hillel removed the hardship of the Biblical enactment, the purpose of which was humanitarian. By Hillel's innovation, the true spirit of that law was maintained, and applied in accordance with its real intent in an age when the economic conditions were vastly different from the time when the law itself was established. Our modern lawyers and reformers in this country may well take a leaf out of this progressive conservatism of our great democratic teacher Hillel.

Other decisions of Hillel equally significant could be cited. To lawyers especially, the study of them is fascinating; they are full of startling relevancy in the present time of unrest and agitation for legal reform in this country. And not without reason. What we are keen for now is a greater measure of social justice in a democratic community. A study of Hillel's jurisprudence--both the theory and the decisions affecting the workaday life of the people--will give one an appreciation not only of the beautiful spirituality of the master, his erudition and his imagination, but the characteristic coalition of letter and spirit, the emphatic sense of social justice, which has prevailed in the whole system of Jewish law.

_Hillel's Public Spirit and Humanity_

Thus Hillel, while head of his famous school of instruction, became the founder of a school in another sense--a school of interpretation of the Torah. This school, as already indicated, was marked by a leniency and elasticity of interpretation of the traditional law quite in contrast to the harshness and rigidity of the contemporary school of Shammai; it is the school of Hillel, leaning to the spiritual and the humane, that has prevailed ever since in Jewish law. Hillel made the people realize the truth of the famous text about the Torah: "It is a tree of life to them that grasp it, and of them that uphold it, everyone is rendered happy. Its paths are paths of pleasantness and all its ways are peace." Those who have mistakenly conceived the Jewish law as something dour and rigid, unlovable, unspiritual, should study the decisions and dicta of this great master.

Hillel's character is illustrated by a number of pregnant sayings of his that have been recorded in the Talmud. "Do not separate yourself from the community," was one of his characteristic sayings which genuinely expressed his public spirit. His sense of individual and social responsibility is summed up in his three famous questions: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am for myself alone, what am I? And if not now, when?" His peace-loving nature and humanity found voice in his counsel: "Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace, pursuing peace, loving God's creatures and bringing them near to the knowledge of the Law." His disinterestedness, his liberal pursuit of the Law, that is, of knowledge, made him confidently say: "He who aggrandizes his name, his name shall perish. He who does not add to his store of learning and good deeds will suffer diminution. He who does not teach deserves death. He who uses the crown of the Law for selfish needs and personal advancement will be destroyed." Who had a better right than Hillel, graduate of poverty, to warn his contemporaries: "Do not say I shall learn when I will have leisure; perhaps you never will have leisure." And in every case, even when the conduct of a man seems most reprehensible, as when one of his colleagues Menahem left the Synhedrion to take service under the tyrant Herod, Hillel holds to this advice: "Judge not thy neighbor until thou art in his place."

Many a tale is narrated of Hillel's patience, unfailing courtesy and tact, tolerance and humility, even under the greatest provocation. The man who bet 400 Zuz that he would break Hillel's patience by silly and far-fetched questions lost his own temper at the consideration with which he was treated. And so the proverb became current, "Patience is worth 400 Zuz." And other tales are told of Hillel's considerate dealing with heathens who wished to embrace Judaism, in contrast to the harsh treatment meted out to them by his contemporary Shammai.

_Sage and Saint_

His perfect consideration and charity had in it even something of the quixotic. When a man came to him for assistance, he was wont to help him according to his previous position in life. Thus, in one instance where a man had formerly enjoyed great wealth but had suffered reverses, Hillel not only provided for him according to his previous standard of living but, it is related, even hired a horse for the man to ride on and a footman to run before him. It is added that on one occasion, when Hillel could not obtain a runner, he himself served in that capacity.

His wife, we learn, was a fit helpmeet to the sage and saint. Their domestic life was a perfect harmony. Once on returning from a journey Hillel heard a sound of quarreling in the neighborhood of his house. "I am certain," said he, "that this noise does not proceed from my home." On another occasion Hillel sent his wife a message to prepare a sumptuous meal for an honored guest. At the appointed hour Hillel and his guest arrived. But the meal was not ready. "Why so late?" asked Hillel. "I prepared a banquet," the wife replied, "according to your desire. But I learned that a couple were to be wedded to-day and they were too poor to provide a marriage feast, so I gave them our meal for their wedding banquet." "Ah, my dear wife, I guessed as much."

But the greatest and most constant hospitality was shown by Hillel to a guest who was always with him and uppermost in his thoughts. Every day it was his habit to withdraw for a while for private meditation. "Whither art thou going?" asked his colleagues and disciples. "I have a guest to whom I must show attention." "Who is this guest?" "My soul," was the solemn reply; "to-day it is with me, to-morrow the heavenly visitant may be departed and returned home."

Is it any wonder that, after forty years of activity in the Patriarchate, when Hillel died (in the year 10 of the common era), men said of him: "Meek and humble-minded, a saint has departed from among us, a disciple of Ezra the Scribe." The title fitted his career, for he came like Ezra from Babylon to Palestine and like Ezra he restored the Law when it was threatened with destruction. Great as a student, he was great also as an inspirer of other students. He left eighty distinguished disciples, of whom the youngest was that famous Jochanan ben Zakkai who became the savior of Judaism at the destruction of the second Temple.

EDITORS' NOTE--Dr. Hyamson's portrait of Hillel is the
first in a series of character sketches of Jewish
Worthies to appear in THE MENORAH JOURNAL. The second
paper will be on Hillel's disciple, Jochanan ben
Zakkai.

The Quality of Mercy

_A Sixth Act to "The Merchant of Venice"_

BY WILLIAM M. BLATT

_Characters_: SHYLOCK, JESSICA, ANTONIO, GRATIANO, PORTIA, ISAAC, _a servant of Shylock_.

_Scene_: A street in Venice.

_Time_: An afternoon, two years after the last act of "The Merchant of Venice."

_As curtain rises, Portia and Gratiano discovered standing and looking down the street, Gratiano pointing._

_Gratiano_ Now Lady Portia look a long way off
And see if you can recognize a friend.

_Portia_ A friend? One person only do I see--
A man, quite old, who hobbles with a staff.

_Gratiano_ He is the one I mean. Now look again
And try to recognize his face, his beard.

_Portia_ Why, is it not old Shylock? Sure it is.
And met most opportunely, on my word.
Now, dear Gratiano, with this icy heart
We must needs waste a score or two of words.

_Gratiano_ To make him help his daughter Jessica?

_Portia_ That is the task.

_Gratiano_ Too much for Hercules.

(_Enter Shylock._)

_Portia_ A moment, Shylock, of your precious time.
You must remember meeting me before.

_Shylock_ Remember, nay then, how could I forget
The noble judge who spoke so clean and fair
And took away on quibbles all I owned.

_Portia_ Not all, good Shylock, half of it remained.

_Shylock_ Oh, true, I thank you for the half you left.
I thank that kindly merchant, him that begged
The Duke to quite remit the City's fine
Which never would have done him any good--
I thank him for accepting what was all
He could have claimed, the half of my estate.

_Portia_ In trust----

_Shylock_ I know. In trust until I die.
And trust Antonio to eat it up.
Is it not known that when he takes a risk
Of more than common danger and doth lose,
He makes a record that he did invest
A part of my belongings in the venture?
Belike by now there's not a ducat left.
For that however I have naught but joy
Because it means that she who was my daughter
And that Lorenzo who's her paramour
Will, when I die, inherit penury.

_Gratiano_ But if Antonio's trust should disappear
They still would come by all you leave yourself;
'Twas thus the Duke decreed.

_Shylock_ I know a thing
Or two that I could tell and make the face
Of son Lorenzo somewhat longer grow.

_Gratiano_ Faith, often did Lorenzo say to us
"The Jew will find a way to cheat me yet."

_Shylock_ To cheat him out of what? The gold he earned
By robbing me, debauching my--my child?

_Portia_ Nay, let us not be quarreling, old man,
I have a message that I want to give.

_Shylock_ No message from my daughter--none to me.

_Portia_ I meant not message, what I have is news.
Poor Jessica has come to sorry straits.
Her husband, having heard of what you spoke,
The loss of what Antonio received,
The tricks you have been playing with your own,
Fell out with Jessica; they came to words;
From words, they say, to blows. And so it seems
He left her in a pitiable state.

_Shylock_ (_laughing wildly_) Good, good, good, good. I prithee
tell me more.

_Gratiano_ The fiends fly off with thee. Hast thou a heart
And canst thou hear the sorrows of thy child
In laughter and with joy?

_Shylock_ She is no child
Of mine. She is a wench who lied and stole
Repaid my love with treason. Broke my heart
And left me weakened for mine enemies
To ruin and to taunt. Tell me the rest,
Leave not a portion out. Describe her pain,
Her hunger, her remorse. I would know all.

_Portia_ The font has failed to change thy cruel soul;
Thou art a Christian, Shylock, but in name.

_Shylock_ Well, blame thy sacred water. Blame not me.

_Gratiano_ And so poor Jessica must starve and die?

_Shylock_ Why, no. For you and she (_pointing to Portia_) should be
her friends.
You Christians will not let a Christian fall.

_Gratiano_ Now there we cut the venom from thy tongue
For Jessica will not accept our aid.

_Portia_ Indeed, old man, we know not where she is.
We told you, that you might go search for her.
Bassanio did offer her employment
But she refused, belike because her shame
Would not permit that we should see her shame.
And so she fled.

_Gratiano_ And may not be alive.

_Shylock_ These circumstances you should tell unto
Lorenzo. 'Twas he took her upon himself
For better or for worse. Fare you well.
I have affairs that interest me more.

_Gratiano_ Come, Lady Portia. 'Tis a waste of time.
The Bible says that God did choose the Jews
But says not what it was He chose them for.
Our ancient friend hath made it clear to me
That they were chosen by our gracious Lord
To be a kind of warning and example
Of what a misbeliever may become.

_Portia_ Thou wilt not save thy daughter?

_Shylock_ Lady fair,
In this peculiar and imperfect world
The virtues are divided into parts:
For instance, mercy. Some do practice it,
And some do merely preach. A third there are
Whose only contribution is to be
The text from which the second sermons preach;
They neither preach nor practice. Such am I.
Farewell.

_Gratiano_ We but insult ourselves to stay. (_Exit Portia and
Gratiano. Shylock looks after them. Enter Antonio, sees
Shylock, walks over to him and touches him with his
stick. Shylock turns._)

_Antonio_ Hebrew, have I found thee out at last?
Once more thy promises are broken, eh?

_Shylock_ Yes, yes. I pray you----

_Antonio_ Pray me nothing more.

_Shylock_ Signor Antonio, wait another day.

_Antonio_ Another day. For what? Until you hide
A bag of ducats or a jewel case?
Your bonds are by a fortnight overdue
And day by day your fortune dwindles down.
If I should sell the roof above your head
And all your land and chattels, they would bring
Less than enough to pay me what you owe.

_Shylock_ I prithee not so loud. But you alone
Are cognizant of my disastrous state.
My name is good. Perchance I may obtain
A temporary loan to tide me through.
But if my losses come to other ears
Before my kinsmen and my ship arrive
A bankrupt's ending stares me in the face.
Wait, wait Antonio, surely he will come,
My cousin Issachar who sailed away.

_Antonio_ Thy cousin Issachar will come no more.
He promised to return three weeks ago.

_Shylock_ But think, remember, good Antonio,
The vessel could not founder. 'Twas my best,
Held in reserve, the last one of my fleet.
Issachar swore he knew the very spot
Where dusky natives mined the laughing gold
And that if I would furnish men and ships
The moiety of the cargo would be mine.
Perhaps he is a little while delayed.

_Antonio_ Perhaps another theory will fit.
Perhaps your kinsman filled the ship with gold
And then did point his helm another way.
Perhaps in England now he lives at ease
And deems the whole is better than a half.
Consider, sir, your kinsman is a Jew.

_Shylock_ He will not fail me, for he is my friend.
Patience, good sir, patience a day or two.
Deal with me kindly as so oft before
You treated many an unfortunate.

_Antonio_ Let's have no whining. See you pay my bills
No later than to-day. Expect no further time.
I have done more than doth in truth become
A Christian to oblige a Jew withal.
Think not to share the leniency I give
To men of Venice of my faith and blood.
This case is different.

_Shylock_ But did thy Lord
Not preach a creed of brotherhood and love
And bid thee treat thy neighbor as thyself?

_Antonio_ He meant our Christian neighbors who reside
By right of law and ancient heritage
Within the land, but not the tribe who do
Usurp the places of their betters. No!

_Shylock_ I am a Christian, made so by your Church.
Your own priest said so and it must be true.

_Antonio_ 'Twas but a form to bend thy haughty will.
In heart and manner thou art still a Jew.
They should be glad that they can here remain
To practice sacrilege, and cheat, and fawn.
I marvel we can be so tolerant.

_Shylock_ The God who made this land and you and me
Mocks at your selfish, mean, philosophy.
When you or yours can build a mountain peak
Or add a grain unto the universe
Then talk of this fair ground as your domain.
The earth is one and rests within His hand;
The great and small His erring children are,
But we who from Yisrael claim descent
Are now the eldest of the family.
The God of Justice never slumbereth.
Jehovah is His name; His will be done.

_Antonio_ Mumble thy prayers if that affords relief,
But if by sundown I am not repaid
Another Moses must thou be and bring
Another set of miracles from heaven
Or lose the very coat from off thy back.
By sundown--but a few short minutes hence. (_Exit Antonio_)

_Shylock_ Finished--almost finished--almost done.
I see the wave that soon above my hopes,
My fears, my sorrows, and my broken heart,
Will roll in cruel triumph. I'm content.
A long and troubled record I shall leave
Of struggles in the dark 'gainst many foes.
I begged for light to see my duty clear
To see the purpose of my suffering
To see the end that my Creator served
In heaping hills of torment on my head.
The light has never come. But now ere long
I must be called where all shall be made clear.
Till then a few weeks more of faith in Him
A few weeks more with an unfalt'ring tongue
To praise His wisdom though its end be hid.
A few weeks more to walk within His law.

(_Starts to walk off. Enter Jessica in disordered dress
and manner._)

_Jessica_ Father!

_Shylock_ Back! Away! Dare not to touch me.

_Jessica_ A word, a single word and I will go.

_Shylock_ (_trying to wrest his arm from her grasp_)
Let be I say.

_Jessica_ Nay, but I cannot leave.
I know not how much time I have to live.
I marvel that this body thin and frail
Has so long stood th' innumerable shocks
Which in my married life it hath endured.
Death must be near, it stretcheth out its arms,
And I in answer have extended mine.

_Shylock_ Come not to me for money. Had I all
The wealth of Sheba's mines I would not pay
A mite to save thy fallen soul from hell.
The potter's field may have thy rotten bones
And owls and jackals pray for thy repose.

_Jessica_ 'Tis not for gold I beg but for thy love.
I threw it from me like an orange sucked
And turned to grasp the shining fruit that he,
Lorenzo, pictured to mine eyes. Ah me,
How bitter, hard and worthless to the taste
Hath been that substitute. The marriage moon
Had scarce grown full before my body bore
The marks of coward blows.

_Shylock_ Ha! Ha! That's well.

_Jessica_ I have not known a single kindly word,
I scarce have heard him call me by my name
Since less than four weeks after we were wed.

_Shylock_ (_gloatingly rubbing his hands_) Hm!

_Jessica_ Oh father, why was I not told before
That we and all our people are accurst;
That those to whom we give our love and trust
Curse us and loathe us with a dreadful hate,
A hate that neither reason can assuage
Nor conduct make amends for. Awful fate,
That makes the very children of the street
With circle eyes point at us in contempt,
And people who have never heard our names
Thirst for our blood and menace us with death!

_Shylock_ So thou didst think a priestly comedy
Could make Lorenzo love his Jewish wife?

_Jessica_ I could have died for him. For him I fled
And stole your wealth and helped your enemies.
Why could he not have been a little kind?

_Shylock_ (_chuckling_) Come tell me how he beat you. Tell me that.

_Jessica_ Have pity, father.

_Shylock_ Tell me how he swore.

_Jessica_ Oh, torture me no further. Take me back.
Love me not now, but let me win your love
A little at a time. No day shall pass
But in it I shall do some tiny act
That will in time make up a wealth of deeds,
And if we both are living long enough
The balance will be as it was before.

_Shylock_ Thy pleadings are but wasted, Jessica,
Thou canst not gain the end that thou dost seek.
For even if I have the foolish will
(And I assure thee that I have it not)
To bring thee back to all the luxury,
The silken clothes, the soft and perfumed beds,
The shining jewels of thy girlhood days,
I could not. I am almost penniless.

_Jessica_ Poor, and alone, and old! Nay, father dear,
Thou couldst not drive me from thee after this
Hadst thou the strength of ten. Let us go forth
And find a little corner of the earth
Where I may work and you may live at peace.

_Shylock_ I need no aid. I want no help from thee.

_Jessica_ Then give me thine. I starve for sympathy.
I shall go mad. I saw my baby die
And all around me were my husband's friends
Who spoke in terms of polished elegance.
With formal platitudes and commonplace
Regarding me as something curious,
A vulgar, noisy creature, lacking taste
And proper self-control. While on its bier
Lay all the joy that life in promise held.
Dead, and my heart within it. (_Weeps_)
(_Shylock turns to go, looks back after a step
or two, and returns_)

_Shylock_ I did not know the little one was dead.
Was it a pretty child?

_Jessica_ A pretty child!
A cherub could not be more beautiful.
Blue eyes and golden hair. A tiny mouth
A dimple in her chin. (_Shylock puts his arm around
Jessica_)

_Shylock_ Thy mother's face belike. So did she look.
And how old when it--died?

_Jessica_ A year, a year.

(_Enter Antonio and Gratiano. Antonio touches
Shylock on the shoulder_)

_Antonio_ Well, let us have an end. The time is up.
I now demand the payment of my bonds.

_Shylock_ I have not moved since last you spoke to me.

_Antonio_ All's one for that. You had no move to make.
Your whole estate is in the bailiff's hands
And you yourself may come along with me.

_Shylock_ Where would you take me?

_Antonio_ Why, before the Duke.

_Shylock_ What need of trials? Freely I confess
The debts I owe you. Take what you can find.
Take ev'ry rag and counter. Take them all.
Myself and Jessica must go away.

_Antonio_ Not quite so fast. The law expressly states
That I may put you in the debtor's gaol
And so I mean to do.

_Shylock_ But good Signor--

_Antonio_ No protest will avail. I know you Jews.
You hang together in calamity
And help each other while the Christians starve.
Let them redeem you and repay my loss.

_Shylock_ Good sir, my kin are very far away
And poor as I.

_Antonio_ 'Twill do no good to lie.
Write letters. I will see them promptly sent.

_Shylock_ I swear to you Antonio--

_Gratiano_ Wait a while.
First tell us if the oath thou art to make
Is sworn as Christian or in Hebrew style;
Though truly which to give the preference
Is matter to discuss. A Jewish oath
Thou canst not take for thou hast been baptised,
And sooth to say I have a sort of doubt
About thy reverence for Christian forms.

_Shylock_ By that great Power who can humble both
Hebrew and Christian, I do swear to you
That not in all this universe's span
Have I a claim on friends or relatives
As large as this. Much more have I the right
To claim assistance from Antonio
Who though he found me keen for my revenge
And steadfast in assertion of my rights
Can bring no accusation on my head
Of underhanded trickery or crime.

_Gratiano_ Because we watch you pretty carefully.

_Shylock_ What say you, sir? You will not keep us here?

_Antonio_ I warned thee once cajoling will not serve.
Write out the letters. That's the only way.
I'll see that while you tarry in the gaol
Your comfort shall not be too much disturbed.
Your food shall be according to your wish
And other things in reason you may have.

_Jessica_ Good sir, I think you know me, do you not?

_Antonio_ Why, are you not my friend Lorenzo's wife?

_Jessica_ I am the Jessica who married him,
But not his wife if wifehood is a state
That presupposes more than legal rights.
I and Lorenzo are as strangers now
And less than strangers, less than enemies.

_Antonio_ I grieve to hear it.

_Jessica_ I would have your grief
Not for myself but for my father here.
He speaks the truth. He has no more to give.

_Antonio_ Then let him call upon his wealthy friends,
The other Jews will trust him if he asks.

_Jessica_ You heard him say he knows not where to sue.

_Antonio_ O, that was but the cunning of his race.

_Jessica_ Unfeeling man! If his deserts are dumb
What of your obligation due to me?
The Court's decree as you no doubt recall
Was that the half of his estate should go
To you to hold in trust for me and mine.
I charge you now upon your Christian faith
To give my father all the residue
That will be mine when he shall pass away
Or take it for yourself and let him go.

_Antonio_ Three obstacles prevent your sacrifice.
The first is that though my intent was fair
By bad investments more than half the fund
Has disappeared, and all that doth remain
Would not suffice to satisfy the bonds.
The second, that the sum is payable
Upon your father's death, which is not yet.
But third and most of all the money goes
To you and to your husband, not to you.
The gift is joint and neither can alone
Claim all himself or any several part.
Indeed, I own it frankly, my desire
In asking that the Duke should so decree
Was not to benefit Lorenzo's wife,
A Jewess, who was never aught to me,
But solely to befriend Lorenzo's self
My coreligionist and distant kin.
To give you anything of Shylock's gold
Without Lorenzo's will would be a wrong,
A breach of trust, a patent injury.
And if your separation from his love,
As shrewdly I suspect, be fault of yours
And growing from thy Jewish wilfulness,
It would be most unfaithful and untrue
That I should thus reward inconstancy.
You see, in honor and before the law
I must refuse to do as you request.

_Jessica_ I see that Jesus died in vain for you.
His Jewish heart, with pity for the low
And meek and humble broke upon the cross
And for a time the magic of his words
Restrained the beast in Gentile followers,
But soon the kindly Stoic lost his sway
And cruel bigots in his Jewish name,
By his offenceless, mild authority
Took fire and sword and hatred for their flag.

_Antonio_ My girl, there is a law 'gainst blasphemy.

_Gratiano_ Why stand we here and listen to her spleen?
Away with Shylock. Take him to the gaol.

_Antonio_ Come on.

_Jessica_ No! No!

_Shylock_ Resist no more, my child.

_Jessica_ Oh, father, we may never meet again;
Your age and suffering cannot endure
The shock of this disgrace.

_Shylock_ 'Tis better so.
I pray for death. It cannot come too soon.
Farewell.

_Jessica_ Farewell. (_Throws her arms around him_)
Yet not a long farewell,
I shall not far survive. It is no sin
To end a life of misery and shame.

_Isaac_ (_behind scenes_) Where is my master? Where has Shylock gone?
(_Enter Isaac._)

_Gratiano_ Here fellow, here he is. With Jessica
He poses like a model for the arts.

_Isaac_ Great news and wonderful. His ship is here
And laden full of gold. The mine is found
And Issachar and he are princely rich.
This cargo is the greatest that has come
To Venice since the city first began.

_Antonio_ I do rejoice to hear it. Truly Jew
I have no wish to do thy body harm
But thou and thy relations are well known
To be so deep in craft and villainy
That to recover what is justly due
We Christians must resort to rigid means.
Go freely with thy daughter. Later on
When ev'rything's in order I'll return
And you may pay me what the balance is.

(_Exit Antonio and Gratiano, followed by Isaac. Shylock
still stands expressionless with Jessica's arms around
him._)

Jewish Students in European Universities

BY HARRY WOLFSON

(_Concluded_)

_Judaism and Jewish Students in France_

The decadence of native Judaism in France has become proverbial. The original French Jews never amounted to much; and the Alsatian immigrants, while still supplying rabbis for the pulpits, have of late begun to disappear from the pews. You may state it is an axiom that the synagogue will have to go a-begging for a quorum wherever church-going is unpopular. But French Judaism has recently been gaining reinforcement by the influx of newcomers from Eastern Europe. Paris might be considered next to London the greatest centre of Jewish immigration in Europe. In fact, Paris as well as some large cities in the Low Countries, and to some extent even London, have since the beginning of the Jewish movement towards the United States, become the refuge of a considerable number who straggled behind the migratory columns and were unable to reach their final destination. Free from any official molestations and rather welcomed by the native Jews, the foreign Jewish community in Paris has flourished in its own way. It numbers by this time about twenty-five thousand souls, a large proportion of whom were born and brought up in the French capital.

It is these young French Jews of immigrant parentage, students and professional men, who organized themselves, about two years ago, in an "Association des Jeunes Juifs," known by its initials as A. J. J. The aim of that organization, which is non-partisan in Jewish affairs, is both cultural and practical. It publishes a monthly by the name of "Les Pionniers," and occasionally holds debates and lectures on various Jewish topics. It also carries on a program of social work among the immigrant Jews. I might perhaps give a clearer idea of the object of the A. J. J. by reproducing their following declaration: "Notre But.--Nous voulons nous affirmer 'Juifs' sans forfanterie, mais avec fermeté; cultiver, développer parmis nous, faire connaître au dehors, l'âme juive; nous éduquer mutuellement; demander, par les voies légales, le respect, la justice pour tous,--fussent-ils juifs; aider nos frères émigrés à l'aquérir la qualité de citoyen; inculquer à nos membres les principes de solidarité et de mutualité." In the summer of 1913, Dr. Nahum Slouszch of the Sorbonne submitted to the society a scheme for more extensive activities, both Jewish and patriotic in their scope, namely, the participation in educational and social work among the indigenous Jews of the French possessions in Africa.

_The Jew of the Roman Ghetto_

It is a pity that so little is known to us about the life of the Jewish masses in Italy. The fame of the Nathans and Luzzattis has led us to believe that in Italy Jews form the class of society from which mayors and statesmen are recruited. But in Italy the majority of Jews still live in social and economic conditions not far advanced above those of their ancestors in centuries past. Italy is the only country in Europe outside those in the Eastern part where the so-called ghettoes are populated by native Jews. Their political emancipation has not raised them from the bottom of the social structure over the heads of their Gentile neighbors. Nowhere is the average Jew so much like the non-Jew in appearance, language, manners, and vocation than the inhabitant of the Roman Ghetto on the bank of the Tiber. He is engaged there in the petty trades of selling his olives, peaches, and figs, and hires out as a journeyman in and outside his country. He hawks with "cartiloni" and "ricordi di Roma" in front of the café terraces, and his street waifs accost the foreigners for a "soldi." Even at the door of his old-clothes shop you can hardly recognize in him the Jew. It is this, more than the paucity of the number of Jews in Italy, that explains the absence of anti-Jewish feeling there. For the name Sacerdote by which Italian Cohens call themselves does not suggest affluence, and the cognomen Levi does not necessarily designate one's business.

In his religious life the Jew of the Roman Ghetto resembles the Lithuanian rather than the Western European. His religious activity, to be sure, is restricted to the prayer services of the Temple, but his Temple is more like a Beth Midrash than a symphony hall and lyceum. Living within a Catholic environment, his religion has been preserved as something positive, tangible, and powerful; and if it is no longer an inspiring influence within him, it exists at least as a reality outside of him. The religious institutions and instrumentalities are looked upon by him as something hallowed and consecrate. The synagogue is spoken of as the "sacro tempio" and the rabbi, referred to by the Hebrew words "Morenu Harav," is looked up to in matters religious as if he were the incumbent of the throne of Moses. The place of worship is opened three times a day for the traditional number of the daily public prayers, and young men as well as old, unwashed and in their working garments, repair there directly from their work to hear the "sacra messa," as the services are sometimes termed by them. Most of the younger Jews are unable to read the Hebrew prayers, some read without understanding them; but they all know a few selected prayers by heart which they recite aloud with many interesting gesticulations and genuflections, while in the pulpit the Chasan reads the services from a prayer-book printed in Livorno, chanting them in a monotonous sing-song not unlike what one often hears in the chapels of St. Peter.

_Societies of Jewish Youth in Italy_

Racial consciousness is strong among these Jews of the Roman Ghetto. They are to themselves, in common parlance, "Ibrim" or "Yahudim," which they utter not without pride, and the Gentile is looked down upon as a mere "goi," while the passing priest is pointed out as a "komer." If you ever happen to be in Rome, I should advise you take one afternoon off, and ordering a "cafe noro" at some café house on the Piazza Venezia, sit down quietly at a table on the terrace and try to look Jewish. You will soon be assailed by a number of postal-card venders coming one after another, until one importunate youth, discovering your identity, will of a sudden change his attitude, and, his obsequiousness gone, will enter with you into an intimate conversation. He will tell you his name, his pedigree, and of the "tempio," and of the street where many Jews live. He will no longer entreat you to buy his goods; and if you do so, he will mumble out his "grazie" rather perfunctorily. For are not all Israel of the same descent?--and if they are not all princes, at least none of them is better than a postal-card vender in Rome.

It is therefore not surprising that among the native Italian Jews there should arise on the part of the young educated elements a desire to convert that latent Jewish sentiment into some form of practical and useful activity. A society of Jewish youth in Italy has already existed for about three years during which time two conventions were held. A number of commendable resolutions were passed about the improvement of Jewish education among the Italian Jews and especially the advancement of the study of the Hebrew language among them. Zionism was warmly endorsed, though the society as a whole did not commit itself officially to the cause. Like the A. J. J. of Paris, the Italian organization also purports to act as intermediaries between the Italian government and the native Jewish population of Tripoli. In Rome there is a local organization of Jewish students, devoted to the study of Hebrew literature, and is rather of cosmopolitan complexion, being composed of Italian, Greek, German, and Russian Jews. The moving spirit of that circle was a brilliant Russian Jew, who had graduated in law from the University of Rome.

_Conclusion: The Growing National Spirit Among Jewish Students_

A close observation of European Jewish students, both as individuals and as groups, leads one to the realization of a growing consciousness among them of national unity, and of an increasing belief on their part of the imperishability of the Jews as a race. That morbid feeling of national decay and the imminent disappearance of the race, which had preyed upon the minds of Jewish men in the past generation, and which is reflected in the literature of that time, has been everywhere displaced by one of confidence and hope. Desertion from Judaism, to be sure, may sporadically make its appearance here and there as a convenient escape from material disadvantages; indifference towards it may likewise in some quarters still survive as a relic of the past,--but these are rather unusual and isolated phenomena, emphasizing all the more the universal fidelity and attachment to all things Jewish.

The enthusiasm for Judaism, everywhere in a process of growth, manifests itself in its early stages in study and self-cultivation; it assumes a more concrete form, in its later stages, of some communal or social activity; and if that development keeps on uninterruptedly it finally consummates in Zionism. This development, it must be admitted, is not a spontaneous and self-directive movement. In no small measure, it is everywhere stimulated by the growing tendency on the part of non-Jews in almost every country to appraise the Jew according to his racial origin, an appraisal which results in a feeling not necessarily hostile, but in most cases neutral and sometimes even favoring the racial and cultural peculiarity, indestructible and impermiscible, of the Jewish element. It is this external stimulus, rather than any internal impulse, that is responsible for the unfolding of the national spirit among Jewish students and the assertion of their selfhood.