Chapter I: HAVE used my text in good old fashion as a pretext for a little (3)

As for the Zionist movement, one cannot help doubting whether Zionism, even if it succeeded in defeating its opponents, would thereby obtain its object. I am not speaking of the very considerable material injury which the movement will suffer from the indifference and hostility of the other side. I am rather thinking of the dangers incurred by Zionism itself if, having repulsed the so-called classes, it becomes a one-sided movement of the masses. Of course, no Zionist can be otherwise than deeply gratified by the prospect of Zionism becoming a cause of the people, but unless it manages to preserve the balance of power within the Jewish community, it will be exposed to risks from another source. Zionism is beset with so many difficulties that it dare not burden itself with problems extraneous to it. The injection of political or economic issues into the movement is fraught with incalculable consequences for the future of the movement in this country. These issues are so extensive in their bearings and so vital in their manifestations that if superimposed on the delicate structure of Zionism they may crush it, never to rise again.

Zionism must, therefore, remain neutral. While including all Jews, it dare not identify itself with any section of them. It dare not be either a movement of the classes or of the masses. While holding scrupulously aloof from the issues which divide modern Jewry as part of modern humanity, it must keep its eye fixed on one point, the securing of a Jewish center for the Jewish people as a whole, in which the ills that afflict humanity may be cured in the prophetic spirit of justice and righteousness.

_A Plea for Peace and Cooperation_

THE practical conclusion of these considerations is clear. It is a plea for reconciliation, for a return to that Synthesis which was on the point of becoming the common ground of all American Israel. American Judaism needs peace to carry out the great task confronting it. Zionism is no less in need of peace in order to gain the hearts of those whose hearts are still Jewish. The very possibility of a conflict has bred a spirit of suspicion and unfriendliness which falls like a blight upon every attempt at united action. The non-Zionists may succeed in defeating their opponents; they can never dispense with Zionism which is a driving force in American Jewish life. The victory may perch on the banners of the Zionists but they can never forego the assistance of the non-Zionists who still form the backbone of American Jewry. Representing the common longings of the Jewish people throughout the world, Zionism should serve as a leaven, quickening and stimulating the Jewish activities of this country, and rescue them from the greatest danger of Diaspora Judaism, the danger of provincialism, of falling away from the main body of universal Israel. In the particular situation confronting us Zionism ought to assert the claims of Palestine, in addition to those of the Diaspora. But the Zionists cannot replace the present agencies of American Jewish life, nor can they dispense with the cooperation of the non-Zionists. Such cooperation, based on the synthesis _Palestine plus Diaspora_, would be of equal benefit to both parties. Zionism and non-Zionism have only one real enemy: it is Assimilation, which preaches the suicide of Judaism. But all those who are concerned about the preservation of Judaism, in whatever shape or by whatever means, have the right to be recognized, if not as fellow workers in Zion, at least as fellow workers in Israel.

_The Supreme Test for the Jews of America_

LASTLY, if cooperation and harmony between the Zionists and the non-Zionists be permanently needed for the welfare of American Judaism, they are needed a thousandfold now when the catastrophe which has overwhelmed the ancient centers of Jewry has turned the eyes and the hopes of the whole Jewish world toward the Jews of this country. Ever since the Jews of Russia, fleeing from the wrath of the oppressor, began to wend their steps toward these hospitable shores, thoughtful European Jews have been looking upon America as the future center of the Jewish Diaspora. And as time progressed, as the numbers and the energies of the Old Jewish World assembled more and more in the New, American Jewry has been steadily advancing toward this exalted position of Jewish hegemony. But what, in the natural course of events, might have been the fruit of slow and gradual ripening, has now been thrust upon us as the sudden result of the World War. Crippled European Jewry is now looking, and will look more and more, to the Jewry of America not only for comfort and support, but also for light and leading, for spiritual advice and guidance, and the Jewry of America, the only Jewry of consequence unscathed by the world struggle, cannot but assume the responsibility.

Nor is the Jewry of America at liberty to choose. There is an ancient Jewish legend which, with a subtle touch of sarcasm, tells us that when the Lord, having descended upon Mount Sinai, was about to bestow the Torah upon the Jews, the latter, shrinking from the obligations imposed by it, made an attempt to refuse the proffered gift. Thereupon the Lord lifted the mountain over their heads and angrily exclaimed: "If ye accept my Law, well and good. If not, ye shall be crushed on the spot!" And the Jews, yielding no less to the promptings of duty than to the dictates of wisdom, quickly recanted and declared: "We will do and obey!" American Jewry will either be the leader of Jewry or it will not be. Let it fail to respond to the great call of history,--and it will unfailingly relapse into the obscurity and sluggishness of its former parochialism. This great world crisis will be either the making or the unmaking of American Jewry, and no Jew whose mind is unclouded by the ephemeral passions of party strife can do aught except ardently pray that the Jews of America may emerge in triumph from their supreme test.

Our Spiritual Inheritance

BY IRVING LEHMAN

IF a Jew of the Middle Ages, or even a Jew living to-day in almost medieval conditions in Poland, were present to-night,[A] he would certainly say, "What sort of a conference of rabbis is this, at which a layman is presiding, another layman is to speak on 'The Religion of the Hebrews,' and a third layman is to speak on a social movement?"

To the old-time Jew a conference of rabbis meant a conference of men learned in the law and its authoritative interpretation in the Talmud--men whose duty it was to teach this law and who would confer among themselves upon the application of its abstruse and technical rules to the daily needs of their congregations. But they could recognize no questions and no problems not fully covered by that law; consequently they could recognize no right in any person not an authority on that law to take any part in such a conference except to ask for the advice of the rabbis appointed to teach the law. That was the attitude of our ancient leaders, and it met with the full and unqualified approval of the Jewish laymen, because it fulfilled all the requirements of our medieval condition. Until recent times we were a people apart, living among the nations of the world, but not a part of them. We had no right to join in the general civic life. Our life consisted in the memory of a national past and in the dreams of a national future. So far as the present was concerned, we were perforce interested only in the maintenance of our identity and in the preservation of our ancient law, so that we might be in a position some day to realize our dreams and to reëstablish our national state, founded on this ancient law. Deprived as we were of all right to live in the present, we could justify our existence and continuance as a separate people and a separate religion only by laying stress on the importance of our ancient law, and striving to hand it down, pure and unaltered, to future generations. Therefore in those days the rabbis were naturally our only leaders, and their right to leadership depended solely upon their knowledge of the law. The observance of the Torah embraced all the limits of the life of the Jew.

_New Opportunities and New Obligations_

TO-DAY all this has changed. The Jew of to-day is living in the present, and the observance of the minutiæ of Jewish law is to the man active in civic and business life of slight if any importance.

Inconceivable as it would be to a medieval Jew that at a conference of Jewish rabbis a layman should preside and laymen should make formal addresses, it would be equally inconceivable to such a Jew that among the laymen who might make such addresses, there could be a professor at a great university, a worker in the general social activities of the city, and a judge. These changed conditions, this wide life now opened to the Jews, have produced new problems, and we demand of our rabbis, if they are indeed to remain the teachers and leaders in Israel, that they help us solve these problems.

As soon as opportunities were offered to us, we eagerly grasped them. We are too eager, too ambitious, too practical a people to continue to live in dreams of the past and visions of the future, when the present is thrown open to us. We have definitely and forever discarded the concept that we are a peculiar people, the "chosen of the Lord," in so far as that concept cuts us off from free participation in the life of the nations among which we live, or from serving in the cause of the general advance of humanity. We have demanded the opportunity to exercise civic rights, and as those rights have been granted, we have recognized that the opportunity confers also an obligation--the obligation to exercise those rights in no narrow spirit, but for the benefit of the whole people of which we are now a part.

_Why the Jew Remains a Jew_

AS a result of this change, we no longer take our Judaism for granted, but day by day perforce are asking ourselves three questions: What does Judaism mean, and why are we Jews? Will the maintenance of Judaism be of benefit to the countries in which we live and to humanity at large? How can Judaism be maintained, since now we not only live among the nations of the world, but the individual Jew has become a part of these nations?

We have discarded, as I have said and as I firmly believe, the ancient concept that Judaism means membership in a peculiar people, the chosen of the Lord, except possibly in the sense that we have a peculiar obligation imposed upon us to demonstrate to the world the power and worth of a spiritual ideal. We Reform Jews have discarded the view that in any literal sense the Lord revealed himself unto Moses and gave unto him the tablets of stone. The words "Hear, O Israel, the Eternal is One, the Lord is One," are still dear to us, but many who call themselves Jews deny even the existence of a personal God. Why then do we still remain Jews, why do not those so-called Jews, who deny the existence of the Lord, frankly join the ranks of so-called universal philosophers while the rest of us join the Unitarians?

The answer comes not only from our heads, but from our hearts. Most of us could not renounce Judaism because deep down in our consciousness, aside from reason or logic, we know we are not as other men; we know we are Jews. We hear the cry of the suffering in Belgium and we answer to that cry because we are men and nothing human is alien to us,--but when we hear the cry of the suffering Jew in Poland and Palestine, then the true Jew answers that cry as the cry not only of a fellow human being, but as the cry of a brother.

_A Nation Founded on a Spiritual Ideal_

IS Judaism then a matter of race? Are we after all and regardless of our beliefs and special obligations, a peculiar people, perhaps even a separate nation? The answer to this question lies, I think, in the study of our history. For centuries past the Jew has been persecuted, driven from one country to another, despoiled, massacred, and at best despised and forced to live in the Ghetto clothed in the badges of disdain. All of this the Jew has suffered and yet survived and kept his religion intact; willing at all times to remain a man apart because he knew that in the past the Jews had been a nation founded on a spiritual ideal; because his tradition taught him that on the slopes of Mount Sinai, the Lord had entered into a covenant with his fathers--and not only with them stood there that day, but also "with him that was not there that day" but who came after them; and that by virtue of this covenant, Israel became unto the Lord a kingdom of priests and a holy people; and because the value of this tradition, the force of this spiritual ideal was greater to him than the security, the right to live and work freely among his fellow men, which he could have obtained only by discarding his Judaism.

During all the centuries since the dispersal, the Jews have had a common history, a common tradition, a common spiritual ideal, and they have survived by reason of the force of this common inheritance. It is this common inheritance of a past founded on a spiritual force that to-day, in my opinion, constitutes Judaism.

_America Demands Adherence to our Spiritual Ideals_

RACIAL Judaism is in one sense, but in the sense of a race that has stood for a spiritual ideal and is bound together by traditions of the value of that ideal, and not simply a race that is bound together by ties of common descent. At all times and in all places a Jew meant not merely a descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not merely a descendant of the people who once ruled over the promised land, but one who considered himself bound by the covenant of his fathers, at least to the extent that he would be true to his spiritual ideals, whatever these ideals might be. Judaism is in that sense a racial religion, but it is and at all times must be a religion and not simply a race. True, we now differ among ourselves as to the content of our religion. True, many of us now deny that that covenant which has kept alive our race and religion was ever in fact made, but we cannot deny our history and our past. We cannot deny that by virtue of the tradition of that covenant our fathers considered themselves under a peculiar obligation, and that by virtue of that tradition they sought to become a kingdom of priests and a holy people.

That tradition at least is our own heritage, and he only is a Jew who recognizes the force of spiritual ideals, and by virtue of that inheritance also for himself assumes the obligation involved in being a member of a nation of priests and a holy people.

If that spiritual concept and not merely race constitutes the basis and the essential content of Judaism, then surely the question of whether the maintenance of Judaism will be a benefit to the country in which we live answers itself. In all civic matters we must work and be as one with our fellow-citizens, but America demands that each citizen give to its service the best of which he is capable.

Since Judaism means the recognition of a peculiar obligation imposed upon us by our past; since Judaism is founded upon a spiritual ideal,--adherence to our ancient faith and endeavor to live up to our past must be to us a source of greater moral and spiritual strength--strength that we must bring to the service of our country.

_The Spiritual Value of a New Zion_

OUR problem then becomes really one of how we can maintain Judaism and keep it alive now that it has become a part and not as formerly the whole of our lives. Some say that this can be done only by recognizing that we are not simply a racial religion but actually a nation, and that we must reëstablish that nation and its capital upon the hills of Zion.

This is neither the time nor the place to discuss such a matter. For myself, I wish to say that if in the country where through our fathers the world first learnt the value of spiritual ideals, where it was prophesied that "the law shall go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem--" and "nations shall no longer lift up sword against nations neither shall they learn war any more," a community of Jews shall be again established who shall represent and contribute to the fulfillment of the prophecy, such a community would be from a spiritual standpoint a living force to keep Judaism alive throughout the world.

"_Nationally We Are Americans and Americans Only_"

BUT I wish also to state that I cannot for an instant recognize that the Jews as such constitute a nation in any sense in which that word is recognized in political science, or that a national basis is a possible concept for modern Judaism. We Jews in America, bound to the Jews of other lands by our common faith, constituting our common inheritance, cannot as American citizens feel any bond to them as members of a nation, for nationally we are Americans and American only, and in political and civic matters we cannot recognize any other ties. We must therefore look for the maintenance of Judaism to those spiritual concepts which constitute Judaism.

And it is the duty of our rabbis in the present just as it was in the past to lead us and strengthen us in our Judaism. A conference of rabbis to-day properly recognizes that Judaism consists no longer in the minute observances of the law; that the Jewish people are asking for the inner meaning of their religion, and not for dry formulas. In all humility as a layman, I say to them that the Jewish people again needs to be taught that what the Lord requires of them is "to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with their God."

_I AM very much pleased with the excellence of The
Menorah Journal, which grows better with every number.
It is conceived in a fine spirit and has a high
educational value for the Jewish young men in the
universities throughout the country._

_The American spirit and the Jewish spirit are in
entire accord, in fact they supplement one another.
The Puritan ideals of democracy which lie at the
foundation of our Government were derived principally
from the Jewish ideals of democracy, and I cannot
imagine any American being less an American for being
a good Jew. On the contrary, he will be a better
American for being a good Jew, more ready at all times
to make every sacrifice for his country in peace and
in war.--Hon. Oscar S. Straus, in a Letter to The
Menorah Journal._

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote A: This address was delivered at the opening session of the Eastern Conference of Reform Rabbis, Temple Emanu-El, November 7, 1915, at which Justice Lehman presided.]

Lyrics

BY LOUIS K. ANSPACHER

Adam Prometheus

I

In olden books 'tis written,
That he that would discern
The secret'st truth of things
Lost paradise eterne.
He was the first that fed
On fruit that knowledge brings;
Exiled from joys, he fled
And flaming swords did burn
Behind his path, which led
To miseries.

II

Great God, vouchsafe me truth:
For I am one that smitten
With the deep mystery of things,
In learned lore uncouth,
Out of pure wonder sings
In harmonies.

III

Great God, forfend the tooth
Of deep remorse, and stings
Of joys that I did spurn:
Oh, spare the gnawing ruth
Of memories' torturings,
Yea proudly did I turn
From earth to snatch at wings
To soar and ne'er return
To life's lees.

IV

Great God, I too am cursed;
A destiny from birth,
Of all dread fates the worst,
Drives me unrestful, flings
Me from my Eden bliss,
Over a barren earth,
To impious search for things
Whose heart is an abyss.
I too am one that clings.
In lust for a knowledge kiss,
Upon my knees.

V

Great God, I've given o'er
My paradise of ease,
Allowed my soul to soar
To mysteries high or deep
At the world's core;
Oh, quench its ardent thirst,
Its hunger, God, appease:--
Or if Thou dost ignore
The soul that Thou hast nursed,
Then smite me as I leap,
And let Thy rages roar
On me as in the first
That fell on sulphur seas.
Yea, down Hell's sliffy steep
Thy molten lightnings pour
Till darkness be immersed;
Yet know I will not creep
Though all Thy thunders burst
In penalties.

My Psalm of Life

I cannot grow as men would have me grow,
By ordered plodding to a life complete;
Climbing the path with slow and heavy beat
Of tedious footsteps from the world below.
I cannot like a visible circle flow
Until by measured compass I can meet
The place I started from with weary feet.
That proudly point the obvious path they go.
Ah no,--mine be the instinct given to trust
That all will in the outcome fall aright.
Like a migrant swan still wandering since I must,
I'll fill a life's full cycle in my flight:
Though I soar into the clouds or sink to dust,
My orb will come around; I'll reach my height.

The Vocal Memnon to the Sphynx

The sands of time drift round me, and within
There is the knell of passing and decay:
The sun-smit vastness of the world doth weigh
Upon my riddling soul like hidden sin,
And bids it speak. Thou desert art my kin!
I crumble to thee, waning day by day;
But I am cursed with questions that betray
The end of life before death's hours begin,
My eyes are staring, yet their sight is blind.
My ears are hollow, yet they hear no sound.
My knees are buried and my body sinks.
The stars weave fates that they themselves unwind,
Traversing the same cycles round and round;
While I sit gazing at the silent Sphynx.

Sholom Asch: The Jewish Maupassant

_A Menorah Prize Essay_

BY PERCY B. SHOSTAC

I

THE MAN AND HIS WORK

IT was in the little parlor of a four-room New York flat. The room was furnished sparsely: a table and a few chairs of bamboo, a long row of books on the yellow floor along one wall, some Chinese ornaments and plants, a few Russian embroideries, a rich Persian covering on the couch, and candles--many candles burning and flickering on their rest of saucer or glazed clay candlestick. Our hostess seemed part of her room; she was a Russian Jewess, decidedly Oriental in type, rare in her beauty and still more rare in her personality and charm.

Sholom Asch sat opposite me smoking his cigarette and sipping his coffee--a big man of thirty-five, with broad shoulders and a frame sturdy and substantial; thick black hair, a high forehead, a characteristically Jewish nose, a firm mouth, a little black moustache, and deep brown eyes--eyes that at times would seem to be unaware of anything surrounding them, yet one felt that they saw everything and understood everything. His complexion was that of a ruddy boy, yet his large handsome features had the sensitiveness which classed him unmistakably as an artist.

He was talking in Yiddish. His voice was soft and his sentences followed each other in musical cadence and beauty.

* * * * *

"YES," Asch was saying, "he was the best Jew I ever met. I always think of him as 'The Light of Damascus.' I was in Damascus last year. The most beautiful city in the world! The houses on the winding streets are centuries old. The people seem older than the houses. For hours I stood in the market-place watching the camels and the asses pass by. Some had the dust of the desert on their feet and some had mud and dirt. Each went slowly on its way with its turbaned rider sitting still as a figure of stone on its back.

"Through the kindness of a friend we entered a house on one of the strange streets. Like most of the old houses its front was plain and unattractive. We went through a court and on to a balcony overlooking an enclosed garden. Such a garden I had never seen! It seemed a picture transported from the 'Thousand and One Nights.' In the center was a fountain of extraordinary workmanship, so inlaid with gems that after the water had gushed out it seemed to splash down again in a shower of ruby and amethyst. About the fountain were palms and fig trees. The flowers were more wondrous than the jewelled water or the many-colored mosaics of the walls and arches.

"On the grass sat a grey-bearded Mohammedan. He smoked his hookah in silence. Suddenly we heard voices. Three young women came from the house and bathed in the fountain. Their lord and husband sat stoically and smoked. They laughed and played in the splashing waters. And as I watched this old man and these beautiful women, I thought myself back in the ancient Damascus, in the city that I had thought was dead for a thousand years.

* * * * *

"THAT evening I was walking in the city. Suddenly I saw a light before me. To my surprise it was an electric bulb--the only one in Damascus. It was fastened to the head of a donkey and illuminated a painted advertisement attached to his back. By following the wires I found they led to a large wholesale warehouse. It hurt me to find this electric light in Damascus. I was still more hurt when I found that the man who had installed it was a Jew, a Russian Jew who had come to the city some years before.

"The next day I visited a shop where hammered gold and silver, for which Damascus is famous, was sold. With the permission of the proprietor I went upstairs to the workroom. What I saw there I shall never forget.

"I found myself in a long but very narrow room, dimly lighted by a few dirty windows. In two long rows in front of two long tables sat fifty or sixty little girls huddled so close together that they touched one another. Each child was bent over the table and each held a little hammer. She was tapping on a piece of metal. The tapping was never-ending--a sharp clicking sound like the falling of hail. The children never spoke nor smiled. Near me sat a little girl. She was not more than eight years old. Her hammer had stopped tapping and her eyes were closed. She was asleep. The girl next to her, evidently her elder sister, seeing the foreman approach, pinched the child sharply. She opened her eyes and dully began her tapping. As I left this room of darkness my eyes were wet with tears.

"I found out that only little girls were employed in this industry: that they began when eight or nine years old. When they were sixteen they usually were dead from the metal that had entered their lungs. The children were mostly Jewish, for you must know that when the Jews become part of a slow Eastern civilization they sink yet lower and become yet more phlegmatic and listless than the people among whom they have settled. I was indignant and asked if nothing was being done to remedy this terrible evil. Then I was told that there was one man who was devoting his life to freeing these children. It was the Jewish merchant who used the only electric light in Damascus. He gave every cent he earned to this work. He maintained an industrial school for Jewish children and was trying to interest the Jews of the world in the movement. And then I blessed this man's electric light. I think of him always as 'The Light of Damascus.'"

* * * * *

AND thus Sholom Asch talked. I cannot reproduce his words; I have only tried to give the spirit of them. He talked in the finished style of a Maupassant, with all the imagination and all the strength of that great master. I saw then, before I had read his work, that his title of "The Jewish Maupassant" was not extravagant. And I saw also that here was an artist with human sympathy immeasurable, and yet not lacking sensuous imagery and elemental strength and beauty.

Sholom Asch was born and brought up in a little town in Poland, Kuttnow, near Lodz. His father was a merchant on a small scale. He bought sheep and oxen from the peasants and shipped them to be marketed in Lodz, in Germany, in France. He rode about the country and sometimes took Sholom with him, whom he loved especially because he studied so well. Sholom liked the sheep and the cattle, and he loved the melancholy Polish landscape--mystic, fearful.

His father was a healthy, normal, honorable Jew; not fanatical but deeply religious. He was philosophic toward life, he cared nothing for money and was content without it. His mother, on the other hand, was nervous and worldly. She was dependent on the externals of life and to her no money was misery. There was a big house with much food, many new clothes, much hospitality, and many big brothers and sisters; something like eleven children. The ceremonies of the Jewish faith were observed beautifully, the holidays kept happily. There was substance and spirit.

* * * * *

AND Sholom absorbed this atmosphere of the old religious rites, and the paganism of the cattle and nature, and spoke little. When he was six he was sent to the Jewish school. This was in session from eight in the morning until five in the evening. He and the other children used to watch the sun shine on certain spots and know the time. How they waited for the moment of freedom, little knowing how well one of their number was to picture for the world each intimate emotion and thought of their imprisoned souls.

One day a peasant came to his house and Sholom went with him on his wagon. That was a wonderful day; he played hookey. The next day the rabbi, who believed in corporal punishment, expressed his views on the matter of absence.

Asch was extremely clever at learning the Talmud and the old history and philosophy of the Jews. He learned to reason from the Talmud and to-day he says, "Art is logic. There must be an 'Urkraft' (elemental strength) behind a man's work." And if there is one outstanding characteristic of Asch's work, it is this elemental, this passionately strong and elemental vein.

Max Reinhardt, whom Asch calls "Ein Dichter im Theater," loves Asch dearly. In his Deutsches Theater, the most artistic and best equipped theatre in the world, he produced Asch's _God of Vengeance_. This was a marked success and is still a most popular play in Germany, Russia, and in the Yiddish theatres of New York. Asch was only twenty-four years at this time. From this play he made much money and a whole village was made happy an entire summer.

Since then his income from his writings has increased steadily. Much of his work is now translated into Russian and German, but as yet not into English. The income from his translations far exceeds that from his Yiddish publications, and he is able to support his wife and four children in ease and comfort. Although he has been to America a few times during the last six years, it is only several months ago that his wife and children arrived from Poland and he settled here permanently.

* * * * *

AN important happening in the history of Jewish literature occurred in the beginning of April. Perez, the intellectual father of the new movement, died. Asch and Perez were deep friends. Of all living writers Perez has had most influence on Asch, both as writer and as man. When Asch brought him his first story, Perez gave him a volume of his poems. He said of Asch, "A bird is breaking through the shell--who knows, is it an eagle or a crow?" It proved to be an eagle. Perez was a revolutionist, a poet, a dramatist, the defender of the weak, the inspiration of the talented. A little story of his, "Bonchi the Silent," about a Jewish workingman who never complained and who took all his misfortunes as a matter of course, whose desires and hopes were so thoroughly crushed out of him that on reaching Heaven and being asked by God to request what he desired most, he said, "I want a piece of white bread every Friday"--that story, more than any one influence, caused the formation of the "Bund of the Russian Revolution." It made the _intelligenzia_ of Russia feel that it was their duty to teach the workingman to demand the earth.

And now since Perez's death, on Asch's shoulders has fallen the responsibility of being the greatest Jewish writer living to-day. He is assuming the added duty of revolutionist as well as artist. For the serious Jewish writer is a sort of rabbi to his people. Ethically he stands for the old Jewish ideals. To these Asch has added the beauty of paganism and the vision of anarchistic communism.

In Paris once he came to a meeting of Zionists. He spoke against the Zionist idea and was not listened to with great deference. Another writer, Abraham Raisin, coming in shouted, "Hear! Listen to a great Jew." Asch was given the floor and finished the speech.

Asch feels that only now is he beginning to drop his Jewish past as material for his work. He is going out into the future: he is becoming impressed with a vision of the America to be--the ideal democracy. And his work is showing it. He is planning a poetic industrial drama, he is finishing a gripping war play. His deep understanding of the industrial slavery of our times is shown wonderfully in his novel, _Motke the Scamp_, which is now appearing in serial form in the New York Yiddish _Forward_. He begins with Motke's infancy. His mother's milk is sold to the rich man's baby; Motke is cheated of everything. Picture after picture of sordid Polish ghetto life follows--intermixed with wood and river sunshine as only Asch can do it. One feels the sun resting eternally over all, while man with his laughter and tenderness and pain struggles toward perfection.

* * * * *

ASCH is becoming an exposer and a prophet, but with great beauty of style and purity of emotion. He is decidedly modern, decidedly Russian, decidedly Hebraic, and eternally universal. He is bringing the message of beauty and freedom to the American Yiddish working man. Asch is not a socialist; he is a real individualist. With a sincere contribution to the happiness of the world he believes that every human being is entitled to all the joy of the world, no matter what form his contribution may assume; shirts, street cleaning, cooking, a painting, dishes, a poem. He does not preach eight hours and a dollar more, he demands joy in labor. He wants people to play--to be happy at their work. He demands freedom in one's personal life and beauty in mind and body. He is an industrialist plus an artist.

Asch has traveled through Russia talking on various subjects to Jewish gatherings, not for money but for love of his race. He has visited Palestine, but with a keen interest in the growth and development of the Jew--not from a nationalistic standpoint but from a world point of view.

And this is why he admires America--because it brings to him a vision of a perfect race, the result of the mixture of all races, perpetuating the fine traits of all. He is immensely interested in the public school. He believes in democracy and thinks we have it in America.

For artists, however, he says this country is not good. The newspapers in Europe, he says, print what Tolstoi eats and how he sleeps. Here Rockefeller is the national hero. The artist here lacks artistic obstinacy; he succumbs to money, he leaves starvation and his _Kunst_.

* * * * *

ASCH loves Shakespere above all other writers; he is his master. For months he went each night to the Berlin theatres and often, with his eyes shut, would listen to the words and cadences of Shakespere's lines. _Hamlet_ he considers the greatest play ever written. _Midsummer Night's Dream_ and _Romeo and Juliet_ are two of his favorites. From the ghost scene in _Hamlet_ he can trace Maeterlinck and all the modern mystics. He says that Shakespere is universal in his appeal and that his work in translation, when done by a master like Schlegel, takes on the peculiar flavor of the tongue and people into which it is translated and loses none of its intrinsic worth.

He loves Gogol and Tolstoi. _Faust_ is one of his favorite dramas. He loves the old masters Greco and Rembrandt; among the moderns, Cézanne, Puvis de Chavannes, Manet. In opera he does not care for Wagner, but he is very fond of _The Magic Flute_, of _Madame Butterfly_, of _Pagliacci_. He loves music and the theatre. Asch reads in many languages, German, French, Russian, Polish, Hebrew, and a little English. But to everybody he talks in Yiddish. He has no ear for other languages except English, which he says is like his mother tongue!

In the spring Asch goes out to the country and works, in the summer he loafs, in the winter he lives among his friends. He writes all the time, being chock full of energy--for work, for love, for friendship, for happiness. As he says, "I am thankful to God for three things: first that he gave me life, second that he gave me my talent, third for my love for you" (this to whomever the lady happens to be).

Like all the artists he is erratic, original, attractive, all-seeing. But unlike most he has much strength of character and a brilliant logical faculty that makes him check up his personal relations. He has much affection in him and a great honesty and integrity which wins him admiration and respect, and he has many friends among many kinds of people in many parts of the world.

Sholom Asch is a philosopher, a novelist, a poet, and a dramatist. He loves the clouds and the sea, he truly loves mankind. Always through all he writes one feels a deep and elemental strength, an elemental belief in nature and truth. He is not ahead of his time; he is rather an interpreter and inspirer of his own day. This makes him the happy person that he is. He is greatly honored in Russia and in Germany, and by all writers in Europe.

II

ASCH AS A NOVELIST AND SHORT-STORY WRITER

WITH this brief sketch of Sholom Asch the man, I shall turn to a consideration of a few of his most important works. As Sir Walter Raleigh, the eminent English critic, has said, the best way to form a judgment of an author is to quote his good passages. Accordingly I have been as liberal as space would allow in my insertion of translated passages. The most recent works, mentioned in the early part of this essay, I shall not treat, as it was impossible for me to procure them at the time of writing. I shall take up each work individually before making generalizations.

* * * * *

_DIE Jüngsten_ is a novel by Asch in which he tries to portray the character and the influences at work on the younger generation of Jews in Russia. The plot can be simply set forth. The younger generation is represented by five characters of three social classes. Mery Lipskaja is the daughter of a well-to-do Jewish manufacturer--in other words, she is of the middle or bourgeois class. She has completed her _gymnasium_ (high-school) education and has absorbed the prevalent ideas about women and emancipation, and a desire for higher education, for a broader life, for St. Petersburg. Kowalski is an artist. He, like Mery, is not interested in the class struggle; all that vitally concerns him is his art and "living." David and Rahel Lazarus are the children of a physician who is giving his life to the people of the "Grube" or ghetto. They have grown up among the suppressed and impoverished Jews and they are filled with the spirit of the revolution; David actively and Rahel passively. Mischa, the cousin of Mery, is a member of the middle class. He has become aware of the conditions in the Grube and his struggle lies between his middle class environmental influence, which includes his love for Mery, and his desire to join the revolution.

At the beginning of the novel Mery has just returned from the _gymnasium_. She is oppressed and dissatisfied with her provincial surroundings and longs to go to the university at St. Petersburg. Mischa, in love with Mery, has also just completed work at the _gymnasium_, and they plan to go to St. Petersburg together. The artist Kowalski now comes to the little south Russian village and soon Mery is in love with him. Mischa is much distressed and suffers greatly. Kowalski leaves, promising to meet Mery at St. Petersburg.

The second part of the novel opens with Mischa and Mery in St. Petersburg. The climate does not agree with Mery and Mischa arranges that they go to a Finnish village. Here they grow very dear to each other and Mischa is about to propose when Kowalski melodramatically appears. Kowalski and Mery now give expression to their love. Mischa returns to St. Petersburg but cannot pursue his studies because the revolutionary disturbances have closed the university. Kowalski and Mery return to St. Petersburg soon after and are admitted to the bohemian life there. Kowalski meanwhile has become famous. The lovers gradually grow apart and when the revolution breaks out Mery returns to her home for safety, leaving Kowalski never to see him again. Mischa has returned home also. After a massacre of the Jews in the Grube in which Rahel, the sister of David, is outraged, he sees that in marrying her lies his only means of becoming one of the Jews whom he was so desirous of helping. So despite the fact that he still loves Mery and she is now willing to be his wife, he marries Rahel. Mery after a period of restlessness in the little town returns to St. Petersburg to join the bohemian group there.

* * * * *

THE outstanding excellence of the novel lies in its characterization. The characters live before us and we see the workings of their minds and emotions with remarkable clarity. The mental struggles of Mischa between his love for Mery and his desire to help the oppressed Jews, always inhibited by inherited powerlessness to act; the carefree, art-centered, egotistical Kowalski; the adolescent romanticism and sympathetic insight of Mery; the cynically idealistic and self-sacrificing Dr. Lazarus--these constitute the real substance and artistic worth of the book. The pictures of contemporary Russian Jewish life are of marked interest, especially to the western reader. The following passages are descriptive of the Grube or ghetto and characterize the condition of the poorer Jews in the towns throughout Russia:

"The sun seldom shone into the valley. Old people lost
their vision early and the percentage of child
mortality was enormous. But even those who remained
alive under these conditions were weak, sick, half
crippled people; impoverished figures with crooked
legs, large heads and weak arms crept through the
streets.

"And in spite of everything the inhabitants never left
their grave (Grube) and made no attempt to find a
better, more healthy home. A sort of sick love bound
them to their unfortunate homes, and like a curse it
rested on each who was born in the valley--that he
could not free himself from it and that until the end
of his days he must eke out his sad existence there."

After the massacre Mischa walks through the Grube:

"The murmur of prayers re-echoed to his ears. From the
little windows of the synagogue came the soft gleam of
candles. He entered. Deep as in a cellar, as miserable
and abandoned as themselves, lay the little house of
prayer of the wretched inhabitants of the Grube. The
walls were bare. The Ark of the Covenant was hung with
only a piece of coarse linen. In front of the broken
'altar' stood an old man in a torn prayer shawl and
prayed before the small penny candles. The room was
full of worshippers, all inhabitants of the Grube.
Their prayer was a groaning, and sighing, and
screaming, out of tormented hearts. It rose up to the
low ceiling and hung over them all like a heavy black
cloud."

And then Mischa knew his people:

"He felt his strength to bear everything; sorrow and
misery and persecution. He saw his people doing the
work of servants through the centuries, from the
farthest past to the present day. He saw the bare
walls of the synagogue, the wretched Ark of the
Covenant, he heard the sad melody of their prayers
which grew to despairing screams. . . . He had the
feeling that he was with his people in a large ship.
For eternities this ship was on a voyage of searching.
It landed at harbors always new and strange: Egypt,
Palestine, Babylon, Arabia, Spain, at Turkey, at
Holland and Russia. And to-day is also a test day for
the Jews. And also this day will end, and many, many,
but the ship will always sail on, will carry them all
to new harbors into the farthest future."

* * * * *

BEFORE leaving _Die Jüngsten_, I cannot refrain from translating two passages concerning Kowalski--the first his longing for the open country after his long stay in St. Petersburg, and the other his remarks on clouds:

"St. Petersburg had become sickening to him. For
loneliness he longed, for solitude. Solitude, with his
brush behind the mountains, in the deep woods. To see
every day sun, mountains, and water! The water that
pushes blocks of ice before it, and to see the cloud
shadows which camp on the wide snow fields. To live
again in the little room with his comrade the
Lithuanian peasant with whom he studied in the
academy! To have no money. To eat bread; much good
black bread with honey which his comrade's father
would send from the village. For whole days to wander
about and paint clouds!"

Mery discovers him at work, and looking at his painting he says:

"Everything is clouds--the warmth that I feel, the
warmth-- . . . and do you see the pride that such a
cloud has, the pride, the formality? 'The cloud is no
small thing,' my fat professor used to say. It is no
small thing to paint a cloud, for then one must feel
eternity. As lovingly as a girl's body must one model
a cloud. And warmth and pride must come to expression.
To paint a cloud means to step into Heaven, into the
middle of Heaven and to see a new world which we do
not know here at all. Such a nobody as I wishes to
paint a cloud, a Heaven--wishes to have seen God and
create Him anew with his little art! That is an
impudence, isn't it?

"There you see what I have painted. It is nothing--it
is worthless--something is lacking." He looked
amusedly at the picture. "Love is lacking. So it is as
my professor with the fat belly loved to say, 'To
paint a real cloud one must love.' Yes, yes, to be
able to create something good one must be in love
or--do you know what? Or to feel a great sin in one's
soul. Yes, yes, with a burning sin in one's heart one
can create big things. When one has entirely
fallen. . . ."

* * * * *

_BILDER aus dem Ghetto_ is a series of sketches dealing with Jewish life. Many Jewish characters are pictured in dramatic situations but with very little plot. The characters are all poor; fishmongers, children of the Ghetto, a Jewish farmer, two mothers, an old married couple. A few typical plots follow.

"Ein Eilbotte" is really a prose poem describing a sunrise, a storm, and the reappearing sun--more properly perhaps a series of paintings, of symphonic word canvases. Let me translate the opening passages:

"Behind the town ruin which stands on a small hill
like a national monument, flaming and fiery rises the
red of the morning and floods with its glow the gray
clouds that hang in the horizon. It brings a son of
the sun into the world. The day tears itself from the
lap of the mother Night.

"In the little town life is beginning to stir. Here
and there one sees a peasant wagon on which the dew
drops of the night are still hanging. Here and there a
Jew, eyes heavy with sleep. The show windows and house
doors are for the most part locked. For many of the
inhabitants the day has not yet begun. . . . This day
shall be like yesterday, like to-morrow."

A storm rushes over the woods. The storm comes like a
mighty giant that wishes to swallow the world or it
seems as though God himself were spreading out His
black mantle: "The end of the world! Neither heaven
nor earth, neither beginning nor end! Black, ominous,
dull, empty. . . . Suddenly Heaven opens for a
second. . . . A blinding light has torn the clouds.
Stabbed by a flaming dagger the giant dies--a confused
moaning fills the air. It rains." But the storm passes.
"The Heaven is clear and blue as if nothing had happened.
The air is clearer and purer, the earth washed clean
by the water."

* * * * *

"DIE Mutter." It is in a little Hebrew school in a small town in Russia. The rabbi has gone to say the evening prayer, leaving the small boys to study. Instead they begin to talk of various subjects. Mothers are discussed and each boy praised his most highly. One pale little chap with large eyes says, "My mother also . . ." and then stops. One of the boys laughs uncontrolledly and then there is an embarrassing silence. The teacher returns. The little Josek, however, cannot keep his attention on the book:

"The 'crazy Trajna' stands life-like before him. Out
there at the well she stands. . . . He sees her
plainly. . . . All too well he knows that dirty
sun-burned face plowed through by a thousand wrinkles,
those great blood-shot eyes with the swollen, sore
lids. . . .

"He remembers her, yes, he remembers. . . . He was
still a little boy then, when the teacher carried him
to school in his arms. He cried then and hung tightly
with both hands to the apron of his mother.

"Mother! . . . this woman his mother?"

And so the emotions of the boy are set forth in memories telling us of his mother before she was insane and now, when she is known to all the village as the "crazy Trajna." The time when he found her insane is described. It was raining and he was hurrying home from school. Suddenly he sees his mother near his father's house:

"There at the corner she stands. . . . Trembling for cold
she seeks protection under any roof. . . . The boy stands
as rooted to the ground, without turning his gaze from
her. The water flows in streams from his coat. She has
turned her glassy eyes on him. Slowly as though
following some inner force she comes closer to him. He
is not able to move from the spot; something
unspeakable gleams in those glassy eyes. . . .

"Now he feels in her the mother. . . . His heart beats as
though to break. Always closer to him she comes. A hot
wave of blood flows through all his limbs and rises to
his head. He trembles as in fever.

"Suddenly all fear leaves him. He assumes a waiting
position and looks directly into her eyes.

"Now she stands close before him. She looks at him.
Away! These eyes! this look! He wishes to fall weeping
into her arms. . . . To weep, yes, to weep . . . to weep
and to kiss.

"He is in the impulse to carry out his purpose when
she suddenly takes his hand. With a quick push he
tears himself from her embrace and runs away as
rapidly as he can.