Chapter M: Trumper (8)

The Omaha Menorah Society, covering both the University of Omaha and Creighton University, was founded in September, 1914. At the organization meeting, Rabbi Frederic Cohn spoke on the Menorah movement, and letters of endorsement from President D. E. Jenkins of the University of Omaha and from President E. A. Magevney of Creighton University were read. A discussion of principles of the Menorah movement followed.

Among the speakers of the year were Dr. I. Dansky, Dr. A. Greenberg, Dr. R. Farber of S. Joseph, Professor Nathan Bernstein, Mr. Isador Rees of the Omaha High School, Professor F. P. Ramsay, and Professor Walter Halsey. In addition to their valuable addresses, discussions on important Jewish topics were held by the members of the Society--a phase of Menorah work which is being steadily accentuated.

The largest meeting of the year took place in Jacobs Memorial Hall, on the evening of May 11th, at which over 300 people were present. The speakers on this occasion were President D. E. Jenkins of the University of Omaha on "Idealism in Education" and Rabbi Samuel Cohen of Kansas City, who spoke on "The Functions and Genesis of Ceremonials".

JACQUES RIEUR

Radcliffe College

During the month of December, 1914, the Radcliffe Menorah Society was organized with a membership of twenty. On January 7, 1915, the purposes of the Society were outlined to the members by Mr. Henry Hurwitz; and Mr. Ralph A. Newman, President of the Harvard Menorah, extended greetings and welcome from that Society. Dean Bertha Boody showed her interest and approval by her presence.

Since the Radcliffe Menorah was not organized until well after the college calendar had been arranged, it was difficult to formulate definite plans for the time which remained. Lectures, however, have been given at open meetings by Dr. H. M. Kallen of the University of Wisconsin and Mr. Maurice Wertheim of New York; and plans are now under way for the formation of a study circle devoted to the study of the Hebrew language.

The interest and enthusiasm of the members--more than half of whom are first year students--gives promise for work of greater scope in the future.

LILLIAN H. ROSENBLUM

New York University

In the first number of THE MENORAH JOURNAL it was reported that because of the division of New York University into uptown and downtown colleges, it was found necessary to organize an additional Menorah Society at Washington Square, the downtown section. This Washington Square Society has for its sphere the professional schools of New York University, whereas the University Heights Society has the Schools of Art and Applied Science.

Organized in October, 1914, the Washington Square Society can already boast of a membership of 160. Over eighty percent of the members are young men and women who work during the day and devote five evenings a week to school.

The Society has conducted under its auspices in the past year about ten lectures, at which the attendance averaged seventy-five members. The lectures covered many phases of Jewish culture and were greatly appreciated. It is expected that study circles will be held during the next academic year, even though it may be necessary in most instances to hold them after 9:30 p. m.

Among the lectures during the past year were the following: Dr. H. M. Kallen of the University of Wisconsin, Dr. H. G. Enelow of Temple Emanu-El, Mr. Samuel Strauss of The New York Times, and Chief Justice Isaac Franklin Russell of the New York Court of Special Sessions.

To celebrate the completion of one year's active work, a dinner was held on the evening of April 30th at the Broadway Central Hotel, at which there were present about 100 members. The Toastmaster was E. Schwartz, and the speakers of the evening included Dr. Bernard Drachman, Israel N. Thurman, Hyman Askowith, Louis Weinstein, the outgoing President, and Chancellor Henry Hurwitz.

BERNARD J. REIS

Notes

Of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association

_Menorah Prize Awards_

The Harvard Menorah Prize of $100 has this year been divided into two equal parts and awarded to Benjamin I. Goldberg, '16, for an essay on "Maimonides as a Scientist", and Leonard L. Levy, '17, for an essay on "The Modern Jewish National Movement". (This essay also won the second undergraduate Bowdoin Prize at Harvard.) Honorable mention was given to Henry Epstein, '16. The judges were Prof. David Gordon Lyon, chairman, and Prof. J. R. Jewett of Harvard University, and President Solomon Schechter of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

The Wisconsin Menorah Prize of $100 has this year been awarded to Percy B. Shoshtac, '15, for an essay on Scholom Asch, the Yiddish novelist and dramatist. The judges were Prof. R. E. N. Dodge, chairman, Prof. E. B. McGilvary, and Prof. M. S. Slaughter of the University of Wisconsin.

Of the three prizes of $25 each, offered by the Cornell Menorah Society this year, only one was awarded ("for the best essay on any subject relating to the status and problems of the Jews in any one country"). The winning essay was by Morris J. Escoll, '16 (College of Agriculture) upon "Phases of Jewish Thinking in American Universities." For the prize in Hebrew there was no competition; for the prize "on any subject relating to Jewish literature in English", no essay was deemed of sufficient merit. The judges were Prof. Nathaniel Schmidt of Cornell, chairman, Prof. I. Leo Sharfman of the University of Michigan, and Prof. M. M. Kaplan of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

_Gift from the Cornell Menorah Society_

THE MENORAH JOURNAL has received a gift of $50 from the Cornell Menorah Society.

_Harvard Menorah Dinner_

The seventh annual Dinner of the Harvard Menorah Society was held on May 3, 1915, in the Hotel Lenox, Boston. It was the largest and most successful dinner in the history of the Society, some 200 men, including a number of graduate members, being present. The toastmaster was President Ralph A. Newman, and toasts were responded to by Prof. D. G. Lyon, Prof. G. F. Moore, Prof. Felix Frankfurter, Dr. Stephen S. Wise, Mr. Felix M. Warburg, Mr. Maurice Wertheim, Mr. Joseph L. Cohen (of Cambridge University, England), Mr. Hyman Askowith, and Chancellor Henry Hurwitz. The winners of the Harvard Menorah Prizes, announced by Prof. Lyon, gave summaries of their essays.

_Wisconsin Menorah Banquet_

The fourth annual Banquet of the Wisconsin Menorah Society was held on May 22, 1915, in the Women's Building of the University. President Harry Hersh was toastmaster, and toasts were responded to by Judge Julian W. Mack, Prof. I. Leo Sharfman, Mrs. Joseph Jastrow, Dr. H. M. Kallen, and Dr. C. S. Levi of Milwaukee.

_Incoming Menorah Presidents_

The elections of the following presidents of Menorah Societies for next year have been reported: Brown, Abraham J. Burt; California, Stanley M. Arndt (re-elected); Clark, Abraham J. Levensohn; Cincinnati, Philip L. Wascerwitz; College of the City of New York, Moses H. Gitelson; Cornell, Aaron Bodanski; Harvard, Fred F. Greenman; Hunter, Sarah Berenson; Johns Hopkins, Jonas Friedenwald; Illinois, Karl Epstein; Maine, Lewis H. Kriger (re-elected); Michigan, A. J. Levin; North Carolina, Alfred M. Lindau; New York University, Michael Stavitsky (University Heights) and Bernard J. Reis (Washington Square); Pennsylvania, Jacob Rubinoff (re-elected); Radcliffe, Hannah R. London; Wisconsin, Charles Lebowsky.

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes:

This text uses both co-operation and coöperation, as well as both to-day and today.

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Page ii, "commissiom" changed to "commission" (My commission expires)

THE MENORAH JOURNAL

VOLUME 1 OCTOBER, 1915 NUMBER 4

The Arch of Titus

Done into English by H. M. K. from the Hebrew of H. A. W.[A]

CRUMBLING, age-worn, in Rome the eternal
Stands the arch of Titus' triumph,
With its carven Jewish captives
Stooped before the holy Menorah.

And each nightfall, when the turmoil
Of the Petrine clangor ceaseth,
Seven flames the arch illumine,
Mystic burnings, glowing strangely.

Then cast off their graven shackles
Judah's sons of beaten marble;
Living step they from the ruin
Living stride they to the Jordan.

They are healèd in its waters,
Till the freshness of each dawning;
Then resume their ancient sorrow,
Perfect marble, whole and holy.

Dust of dust the wheeling seasons,
Grind that mighty archèd splendor,
Raze the Gaul and raze the Roman,
Grind away their fame and glory,
The shackled Jews alone withstand them,
Stooped before the holy Menorah.

The Duty of the Hour

BY MAX NORDAU

WE are the people of the Messiah. We feel, we think Messianic. In all situations of life, and particularly in the critical ones, we hope for a miraculous event which will fulfill all our yearnings, and in this hope we feel delivered of the manly duty to work for the realization of our ideals, to prepare our salvation by our own efforts.

At this moment a large portion of Israel dreams once more a particularly lively Messianic dream. Hundreds of thousands, millions of Jews, indeed, have abandoned themselves to the expectation that at the conclusion of the peace which will put a stop to the world's war, the destiny of the Jewish people must take a miraculous turn. The plenipotentiaries of the belligerent powers will assemble in a conference or a congress to treat of the conditions of peace. The conquerors will exact of the vanquished the price of their sacrifices and return home with their booty in the shape of territorial acquisitions and indemnities. And in the course of these transactions the miracle will happen that a share will be apportioned to the Jewish people too. Palestine will be offered them, either as an area for colonization or, still better, as a full property under the protectorate of a great power. They will be accorded also entire equality of rights in Russia and Roumania.

_The Basis of Jewish Hopes: (1) The Self-Interest of the Powers_

WE may plead reasons or excuses for indulging in this dream. Utterances of leading personalities of the big nations which will necessarily be represented at the peace conference have become publicly known which permit the conclusion, without intentional self-beguiling, that some governments at least, if not all of them, are occupying themselves earnestly with the Jewish problem and examining the question whether it might not be worth trying to settle the Jews in search of a homestead in Palestine, under international and local legal conditions vouchsafing them full freedom of economic, intellectual, and moral development.

On the other hand, there is no doubt that the situation of the six millions of Russian Jews occupies a certain place in the thoughts and cares of the governments. Several countries have an interest in turning away from their frontiers the ever more violently swelling stream of Jewish emigration, and doing so otherwise than with the brutal method of locking up their boundaries and posting a police watch before them. Others have the well-being of Russia at heart; they understand that the sufferings and the despair of her six millions of Jews are a source of dire evils and that the emancipation of this hard-working and highly gifted population will bring about the material prosperity, the general progress, and the powerful strengthening of Russia. Other countries again, the statesmen of which are more farseeing than the average and have been able to rise to the conception of a political world hygiene, are aware that the systematic crushing of six millions of intellectual and strong-feeling people driven to despair must create a hotbed of the most dangerous anarchistic and revolutionary epidemics, the spreading of which cannot easily be limited to the spot of their origin. Lastly, even the most irreclaimable pessimist will admit at least the possibility that governments may not be entirely inaccessible to purely humane sentiments of pity and justice, and may regard the treatment of the Jews of Russia and Roumania as an indictment against the civilization and the ruling religion of white mankind.

_(2) The Precedent of 1878_

THE hope of the peace conference resulting in great achievements for the Jewish people, moreover, can evoke an historical precedent. The Berlin Congress of 1878 which brought the Russo-Turkish war to an end, created the Bulgarian state, raised Roumania to the rank of an independent kingdom, and gave Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austria-Hungary, found time to occupy itself with a Jewish matter and to introduce into the treaty condensing its decisions the well known article obliging the new kingdom of Roumania to bestow on her Jews equality of civil franchises. It is not the fault of the Berlin Congress that this article has remained to this day a dead letter. The case, at any rate, is of a nature to encourage Jewish optimism against those sceptics who sneer: "A diplomatic conference distributes no presents; complacency and liberality play no part there; there are only such interests enforced which are backed by a victorious army or at least by an army which still inspires some fears." Well, in 1878, too, the Jewish people had no country, no army, no government, no accredited ambassador, and yet two of the most influential members of the Berlin Congress, the representative of Great Britain, Earl Beaconsfield, and that of France, Waddington, were ready to step forward as advocates of the Jewish cause, and the president of the Congress, Prince Bismarck, evidently favored their action.

_But We Ignore a Valuable Lesson_