SELF-assertion, not assimilation, is what Zionism proclaims. Not the Marrano's cowardice, but the full patriotic self-sacrifice of that band of Jews who left inquisitorial Spain never to return rather than to forget their individuality as a people.
AN adept swindler, who goes by the name of de Bovitz or de Blowitz, has been spreading himself over the map of Mexico with a scheme to settle 65,000 Jews in that country, and has so cleverly worked his plan that in many quarters there is no doubt as to his sincerity. But recent disclosures of facts which are indisputable, show this man to be a scamp of the very first water, against whom all good people, especially those who have some property to give away or grant away, should be warned.
Methods in Hebrew Teaching
THE study of Hebrew in our congregational schools is a matter which certainly deserves attention. Perhaps no part of the work done in these schools has been so neglected as this has been. Very often incompetent and poorly informed teachers have had the matter in charge. The worst possible text-books have been used and a system of learning by rote employed, which would have been hustled out of court in any fairly decent curriculum. And then we wonder why it is that the study of Hebrew has retrograded in these schools, that the pupils discard it often the very minute after confirmation and that they carry with them into their congregational life a thorough distaste of the ancient language and a desire to see it banished from the home and the synagogue as quickly as possible. The child feels where the man thinks, and instinctively comes to love that which is properly done and to hate that which is botched — and “botched” is the only word that will properly characterize the methods heretofore used in teaching Hebrew in these schools.
If the Hebrew language is to be kept in our service. much more attention must be given to its study in the religious schools, better methods must be employed and more thorough teachers trained. There seems to be no valid reason why Hebrew should be taught differently than other languages are taught. It is not a dead tongue, but for a large number of Jews has real and pulsating life, and is for them an actual vehicle
of thought and speech. Until those who have the ordering of the curriculum in our schools come to view Hebrew in this light, we shall continue to wander in the dark and lose ground every day.
It is therefore with pleasure that we see the attempt which is about to be made in one of our metropolitan synagogues to remedy this evil and to treat the study of Hebrew from a rational basis. This attempt is to be made by the Rev. Dr. Asher at the Madison Avenue Synagogue, and we shall follow with interest and pleasure this new departure in the instruction of Hebrew. Of course, good teachers and good text-books are the first necessity. A committee appointed at the last convention of the Federation of American Zionists has under consideration the publishing of a text-book for the study of Hebrew as a living language. There ought to be enough teachers found among the younger generation who have had a chance to study the modern methods of language teaching.
The Riches of Jews
NON Jewish nationalists persist in denying the imputation that all Jews are rich. Of a certainty they are not! Not even a presentable minority. Witness the pitiful cases thrown up in every city against the communal buffer, called the ‘‘ Charities,’’ which stands between relief and despair. Witness the crowds of wandering Jews from the land of the oppressor. Witness the upheavals in the economic world created to shake the Jewish proletariat from his, in any case, insecure position. Witness the miserable insidious attacks made against him by pseudo social scientists. What people, with such difficulties, could be anything but poverty stricken? No need for denying such a palpable lie.
But who does deny it? Just those friends of ours who fear that ihe Zionist movement will arouse the slumbering demon of anti-Semitism. So little faith have these that the serpent has been crushed, even in this delightfully free country! Ifthere is no fear of auti-Semitism, why persist in denying the charge that Jews are extraordinarily rich; why not take it as a tribute to Jewish intelligence and industry, for is it not good to be rich and are not rich men a credit to the nat'on that gives them birth?_ Why then this extreme insistence that Jews are not rich ?
It is, we must declare, because our denationalis-