The Maccabaean

UNQUESTIONABLY a most sriking example of the reconciliation between modern culture and Jewish life is the young painter, Herman Struck of Berlin. He is to-day regarded by competent critics of every kind as perhaps the finest of German teachers and a beautiful workman in other artistic fields. He is the assoc- ciate of men in every rank and sphere of life, men of all shades of opinion, from Hauptmann to Erich Schmidt, from Bebel to Haeckel. Yet he is at the same time, of all the men whom I personally in a not narrow experience have come across, the most observant of Jewish customs, the most steeped in Jewish patriotism. His artistic themes, aside from his wonderful portraits, are manifold, and range skillfully from Holland to Tyrol, from Ramsgate to Sweden, but the works into which he has thrown his soul are those that deal with Jews and Jewish scenes,—old rabbis, the grave of Rachel, the great Hebrew scholars, the going out of the Sabbath. These are marked by an unsurpassed fervour and honesty that truly show forth the man.

Herman Struck did not become an orthodox Jew by a reaction. His family form part of that quiet section of German Jews, which, under the leadership of Dr. Adolph Berliner, began in Berlin the first "counter-reformation" almost half a century ago. The Strucks in other words have belonged to what is known as the Kleine Gemeinde or Small Congregation, or more exactly Community, which seceded from the so-called Grosse Gemeinde because of the latter's too radical tendencies, and has since established its hand-

some seminary and synagogue on Artil- leriestrasse, Berlin, and has slowly grown in numbers and wealth. In it are included many German Jews of culture and education, in whom the assimilation of secular learning produces no violent nausea against Jewish learning. They compose a well behaved, kindly disposed, non-fanatical community which is in some degree an offset to the extreme reform and bigoted majority; and they will in time, I believe, become an examplar for similar communities in America, when we have stopped fermenting here. But Herman Struck has gone even further than this community. He came early under the influence of Theodore Herzel, and labored zealously for the establishment of the Zionist movement in Germany. Nevertheless he accepted the scathing analysis by Professor Berliner of Herzl’s religious dogmas, and himself was active in and later assumed the leadership of the so-called Misrachi movement. In America only little is known of this organization, which may be described as pietistic Zionism. It accepts the conclusions of Herzl and the Basel program that the Jews must find a legal and assured home in Palestine, but meanwhile its adherents observe every jot and tittle of the law. In the case of Struck this is no mere toploftical assertion that is carefully neglected in the fact, either through ignorance or on purpose. He proceeds, on the contrary, almost to fanitical extremes in his observance of the Mosaic code, and zealously undergoes every discomfort and annoyance that such an observance may entail. His attitude on this subject is well known to his Christian friends, and is of course thoroughly res-