The Maccabaean

(Concluded)

Zichron-Jacob is a good deal larger than any of the colonies in Lower Galilee, and it differs from them in character. It depends much more on inhabitants than on agriculture, and its inhabitants are rather “upper-class” farmers, villagers and shopkeepers than sons of the soil. The refinements of life are less noticeably absent than, say, at Mescha. For a small village—and after all, a colony with a population of less than 1,000 is nothing more—it seems to be very comfortable and prosperous. It is situated on the top of a hill and commands a view of the sea from certain points of vantage, as well as of Carmel and the Judean hills. Altogether it is, as pleasant a spot as one could wish, though the surrounding country, to my mind, is less attractive than Galilee.

At the service in synagogue yesterday morning there was an attendance of 60 to 80 people, the great majority of whom were men of the older generation. The service was read according to the German-Polish ritual and in the German-Polish pronunciation. It struck one as odd that the children, who, of course, speak Hebrew with the Sephardic pronunciation, should have to hear prayers read in a Hebrew quite different form their own; and it was not difficult to understand why few of the children were there, and why those who were there were inattentive. The synagogue service seems to be here, no less than with us, a survival from a different state of life. It has not yet adapted itself in any way to the new conditions; and if the synagogue has any influence at all on the younger generation, its influence must, one imagines, be no less than of harmony with their everyday life than it is in England. The younger people are clearly more at home at the Hebrew lectures which they hear on Saturday evenings in the Beth-Am. It need not be concluded that the synagogue

will die with the older generation—such a conclusion would be contrary to all experience. In England the younger generation tries to bring the synagogue nearer to itself by introducing the English language and English ‘decorum’ and generally by aping the Church within certain limits. Here the necessary adaption will not be made under stress of anti-Jewish influences, and the “reform” of Judaism will not mean its Christianisation. The “reconcilation of religion with life” can be carried out under more favorable conditions—and there is no reason why it should not be carried out. But so far as the Synagogue is concerned, it seems that the process of reconciliation has still to be commenced.

However that may be, Sabbath at Zichron is certainly Sabbath. One realises here then artificiality of the Sabbath in England, where he who wishes to rest on the severth day has to withdraw himself forcibly from the life by which he is surrounded in order to create the necessary atmosphere. Here, on the contrary, it would require an effort not to keep the Sabbath. The atmosphere is there; it requires no creating, The aspect of Saturday is quite different from that of Friday or of Sunday. Analyse this difference, and you find, of course, that it is the result of action, of a number of individuals, who refrain of set purpose from doing their ordinary business. But when these individuals are not merely an artificially segregated fragment of a larger whole, but are themselves the whole, the collective result of their action is something independent of the number of individuals concerned. It is not the inhabitants of Zichron who keep the Sabbath—it is Zichron itself. And the celebration of an Arab wedding in one corner of the colony did not interfere with the Sabbath atmosphere.

Chedera looks at first sight more like