The Maccabaean

THE end of ‚last month marked the period of twenty-five years since Sholom Aleichem made his first appearance on the Yiddish literary field. For twenty five years he has laughed and the publir has been merry with him. None could withstand him. All were affected by his geniality. Because of him the contorted and furrowed Jewish countenance, paled and painful, assumed a bouyant expression. The deep Jewish eyes brimming with sorrow, sparkled gleefully, kindled and remained one of the rays of candles lit for the holiday. Veiled in sorrow is life in the Goluth. Not a single ray of light illumines the darkness of the Ghetto. Its atmosphere is close and suffocating; a leaden sky hangs over the Jewish head to change its color only at times of massacres, when Jewish lives are consumied; then it assumes a crimson hue and a threatening, ghastly appearance. Jewish poets have shed tears at the ruins of their people, moaned, sighed and prayed to the Omnipotent to save their people from danger. They have composed dirges, heart-rending prayers, poetry dipped in tears and dark lamentations full of despair. This national treasury of wailing grew from period to period. In the legendary bottomless cup of tears more tears were accumulated, and the waves surged and foamed.

The greater the poet, the more touching his lament on the downfall of his people, the deeper the sorrow his creations breathed, and like venomous serpents his words gnawed the heart and fevered the blood.

Jewish poets not infrequently in their wrath uttered curses against their tormenters. Whenever their enemies were not satisfied with Jewish blood, but trampled

on the Jew's honor and laughed at his impotence and helplessness, a curse would rise to the poet's lips, white with indignation, which the Jewish martyr charged with his surprised grief and righteous wrath.

The Hebrew is remarkable for its peculiar force in the expression of indignation. But Jewish poets refrained from laughter. They did not know the nature of humor. They therefore turned to satire, to bitter irony. The Jew once loved to speak the truth openly without reserve or fear. The prophets in words like swords cut right and left with the naked blade of truth and were unmindful of consequences. Now the Jew is still a truth-proclaimer, but he is in a state where his frankness would not exert any influence. The Jew took shelter behind satire. He pricked with a needle, but the point was hidden in velvet. He attacked gracefully. He administered the bitter pill sugar-coated.

Some of the greatest satirists were Jews. Through their satire they have avenged themselves on their enemies. The literarv world fears the Jewish satire, for it is not convenient to undergo the frying process in a satirical griddie. The Jew also made use of a jest when he was caught in a trap, deceived his enemy with a jolly answer, soothed the angry opponent. This kind of a jest, however, had nothing of good will in it, because the one who used it did so as a means of defence, and he was therefore watchful as to the effect of his joke on his enemy, and behind in a tremor was felt, a tremor of a soul in danger, nervous and restless.

In the last period of the last century, when there arose a new generation that clamored for reforms and struggled against