fiedly are the accretions of non-legisl tive customs, which have grown about the day.
The fact of the matter is that Mrs. Ruskay attributes to law, what does not belong to it. She takes the sweet domestic life of the Jew as being due to the Sabbath, to the holidays, but these holidays were observed as they were because of the innate domestic life of the people. New conditions form new domestic joys. The Boers are domestic and so are the British: domesticity is a trait of the civilized man. And where there is a domestic life precedents will arise that will endear themselves to the family.
Logically, Mrs. Ruskay's standpoint is curi- rious. In a letter written to the “American Hebrew,” September 22nd, 1890, published in the reports of the “Central Conference of American Rabbis,” 1891-92, Dr. K. Kohler says with reference to the Abrahamitic rite: “Either the law is a hygienic measure, and then it concerns man as man ; or it is a religious ceremony, in which case it concerns the Jew as one in need of this sacramental sign. It is a similar piece of folly to claim the dietary laws to be laws of hygiene and yet confine their observance only to Jews, because they are also religious laws.” Mrs Ruskay appeals to us to observe the Sabbath, regardless of pecuniary loss, as a religious duty ; then she turns about and appeals to us on the ground of sentiment ; then as of ultimate economic benefit; then because of its domestic significance, etc. She does not care why the Sabbath is observed. only let it be observed.
We are in thorough sympathy with the author's appeals for better regard for tradition ; we believe in domestic life ; we believe in all those joys created about the family board that make life memorable ; we believe in less frivolity and carelessness with regard to life as such ; and the essays written in admirable style, deserve praise for that. But we cannot allow mental and religion confusion to pass by unnoticed.
Such an extended criticism were unwarranted if Mrs Ruskay did not represent a large class of well intentioned persons, who, oblivious to the wider aspect of Judaism, represented by Zionism, seek by a srrict adherence to the things of long ago, "full of flavor and breathing a sweet incense" to create an attitude of mind which is confusing and therefore to be deplored. Philo describes the women of his time as "competing with the men themselves in piety, having determined to enter upon a glorious contest, and to the utmost extent of their power to excite themselves so as not to fall short of their holiness." But recently, in America, women have been excelling the men in piety and attention to synagogal matters. Yet emotionally awake to a greater extent than the men, they have in a way affected our religious life to the detriment of it from an intellectual point of view. This influence must be counteracted by the assertion of masculine intellectual vigor touched with the genuine emotion necessary to religious beliefs, which must not be confounded with a feeling that is a mixture of Orientalism and sentimentality.
The Method of Philanthropic Agriculture
COLONIZATION other than Palestinean is now a thing of the past. When the late Baron de Hirsch placed a large sum of money in the hands of a committee in the United States for the purpose of colonization, a number of agricultural colonies were projected in the middle West, West and South. As a result the settlement of Woodbine N. J. was made. Though this colony claims to have solved successfully the problem of Jewish colonization, proof of that assertion is lacking. The soil is more fitted for making glass than for raising agricultural products. This choice of location is inexcusable, for the experience of the older colonies in New Jersey had proven that it is an expensive under-
taking to build up such land. It requires more patience and outlay than it is worth. From agriculture Woodbine turned to the "needle industry" or tailoring, and here it was whispered the question was solved. Woodbine has got it. All Jewish colonization must be a compound of agriculture and industry. But if we observe the Woodbine compound, it is composed of the novel industry of tailoring principally.
In Woodbine the money of the Baron is being poured out. It is safe to say that the officials have more interest in keeping up the settlement than the settlers. Undoubtedly the ages have waited with baited breath for Woodbine to answer the question: Can Jews be farmers?