The Maccabaean

everything round about is wrapt in forlorn silence. The dark, scowling clouds are whirled swiftly across the sky and in the wide extent of fields and hills and trees the only human figures are those

of the old gray-haired man and his wife praying outside the railing of the grave where the son of their old age lies buried. And the tall marble crosses glare white and ghastly in the dusky air.

Joser#k ScawArz well understood that with the increase of the population the continual study of the Torah by all men would become an impossibility. Thousands of men would have to abandon their learning and enter the battle of life for which this school would make them fit. Left without any education whatsoever, those men would become more harmful to Judaism than any school could be. Joseph Schwarz is a very interesting figure in Jewish history. Besides his great share in the progress of Palestine, he is known in the history of literature as the second Parchi, as he resumed the geographical studies of Palestine which were neglected since Parchi. His excellent book of geography Tewnoth Ha’aretz, shows great Talmudice and scientific knowledge, The present studies on Palestinian geography and archeology made by the German, English and French scholars have no doubt been stinyılated by Joseph Schwarz. Jos- epr Schwarz is perhaps the only one ot Jerusalem of whom Frankl speaks wth reverence whenever he mentions his name.

But the isolated support of Joseph Schwarz was not sufficient for carrying out Frankl’s plan. Having no success whatsoever with the Ashkenazic congregation, Frankl directed his steps toward the Sephardim, who accepted this offer without resistance. But no sooner was the school open than bitter lattacks were directed against it by the Ashkenazic Rabbis, and both the school and Frankl were excommunicated. The day when Frankl left Jerusalem he saw his picture posted on the

walls of the streets and covered with insults and defaced. The incessant attacks by the Rabbis upon the Lemel Schule in the hands of the Sephardim lasted for three years. The school was in the most pitiful condition, and the Rabbis well knew that it was not even worthy to be an object of attack as it occupied sısch an insignificant part in the life of Jerusalem. They feared, however, its subsequent development, and their tactics were to quench at its birth every progressive movement.

‚ But the attacks of the Rabbis upon the Lemel Schule soon got diverted from their course by the appearance of a new institution of an altogether different nature. This was the institution founded by Rabbi Saul Benjamin Cohen, from Rad- ish Kewitz, who came to Jerusalem three years after Frankl had left. It was a kind of Rabbinical College, including a Talmud Torah of ten classes and the Yeshiba called Etz Haim,. We would naturally be inclined to believe that the Rabbis were ready to lend their support to an institution of this kind. Such, however, was not the case. The previous methods of teaching consisted of private Hedarim and individual lessons given by some old Rabbis. The changes introduced by this new Talmud Torah, the systematic method, the division of classes, the beautiful and sanitary building, all these innovations aroused suspicion and the institution was looked upon as a dängerous deviation from the sacred past. Reb Leib Jawitz, the grandfather of the modern author, Jawitz, and Joseph Schwarz, who was always ready to