...sophy in regard to the socalled cultural Zionism did not attract him. He opposed Achad Haam in many things; but that did not prevent him from writing his brilliant feuilletons for the Hashiloach.
"Having been a successful merchant, he never sought to make a living from his pen. He wrote only when he had the time and felt an inclination to do so. His office was the gathering place of all the communal workers, literary men and Zionists in Odessa. No serious Jewish work was ever undertaken without his advice."
The Work of Jacob Wasserman
In an article on "Recent German Fiction," in the New York Evening Post, A. Von Ende referred lately to the work of the German-Jewish novelist, Jacob Wasserman.
Jacob Wassermann, said the critic, is a conspicuous figure in German letters. The philosophical reflection of the Teuton and the torrid imagination of the Oriental blend together in this author, whose reputation was made by a novel of Jewish life, "Die Juden von Zirndorf," and has since been greatly strengthened by his "Geschichte der jungen Renate Fuchs." To the latter, his new book, "Die Masken des Erwin Reiners" (Berlin: S. Fischer), is in some respects a companion. For while Renate has been held up as a model of that purity which, in the language of the moderns, can walk unsullied through the mire, Virginia Gessner embodies that heroic resistance to evil which, with other ethical ideals of our forefathers, has been banished to a garret-corner of the modern conscience. Attractive as is the figure of the girl who carries her symbolical name with unusual grace and distinction, the interest of the reader soon centres in that of the young æsthete who, below the many masks that fascinate the world about him and hide his identity, bears a haunting resemblance to Dorian Gray.
The Return of Herr Brainin
Referring to the second coming to America of Herr Rubin Brainin, to edit a
Hebrew weekly in New York, the editor of the Jewish Advocate, Boston, makes some interesting observations. The writer is wrong in thinking that Herr Brainin is to conduct a Yiddish newspaper, but that error is only concerning a detail and does not materially alter the position taken. Nevertheless, we are glad to have Herr Brainin come back here and trust that his high hopes about the future of Jewish America will be justified. The writer of "News Notions" for the Advocate says:
"It is reported that Herr Brainin, whom many listened to with interest in Boston early this year, is about to settle in New York, as the editor of a Yiddish publication. Those who understood the trials and tribulations that await him are tempted to cable him not to come. Brainin has today an international reputation as a Hebrew publicist. The change implies a descent. But that is a mere detail compared with the task involved in resettlement by one of matured years. No one thirty years of age should, in his own interest, be permitted, perhaps the term is too harsh, to engage upon so violent a change as quitting Berlin for New York. Success, which is seldom achieved after that age, does not recompense for the pain of uprooting and transplantation. We are all weak enough to like our own ways of doing things, and the mannerisms are mostly those required in youth and fixed by the habits of the third lustrum. And it is against this self that the man who comes here over thirty must struggle.
"Our Americanism is pitiless in its demand for root and branch changes. And then we American settlers have a peculiar habit of destroying the reputations of those who come here full of honors to settle amongst us. Thousand welcomes are offered to the visitor, and nothing but criticism for the settler. He must begin again, and away down at the bottom rung of the ladder. Becoming one of us he must share the worst of our experiences in order to reprove his worth. The nimbus of his foreign reputation is gone. He must struggle to obtain, achieve a new record.
"That is why, having regard for the man, we would wish Herr Brainin a better fate than an editorial struggle in New York Yiddish journalism."