OF WHAT VALUE IS GYMNASTICS TO US JEWS?
Translated for THE MACCABÆAN by DR. GEORGE JESHURUN
The kind of Gymnastics here spoken of is the German "Turnen." The latter is radically different from what is termed Sport in English-speaking countries, and has but little in common with the so called Athletics. The German "Turnen" represents an eliborate system of gymnastic exercises executed individually or collectively, very much like what one may see on the arena of a circus. The aim of this system of gymnastics is the harmonious all-around development of the whole muscular system of the human body, according to the possibilities of each individual. The ideal of the German "Turnen" is the power and beauty of motion and of rest.
The spirit of strife and victory at any price is absolutely eliminated. And there is no professionalism or business of any kind about the German "Turnen." For the latter is not mere gymnastics with the German. It is a kind of a cult, a modern knighthood.
It is to the well known German, Jahn, that the Germans are obliged for the developement of their "Turnen." It was he who organized the first "Turnverein," and breathed a spirit of chivalry into the whole system. He began his activity right after the fall of Napolean I, when Germany was left crushed, disunited and dispirited. And Jahn's aim was to breathe a new spirit of self-reliance and of mutal helpfulness into the German youth. Of course, the bureacracy of Jahn's time saw in all that free-thinking vagaries and revolutionary aspirations and Jahn was persecuted for his pains and the "Turnvereine" prohibited. In spite of all that, Jahn's creation survived, and the result was a new generation of Germans which made a modern united Germany possible.
And what the Jewish youth wants now, is a Hebrew Jahn to take the leadership of Young Israel.
That gymnastics is conducive to health, bodily development, vigor and beauty, and that it fosters a sense of personal dignity, has been repeated again and again till it has become a commonplace. It has also been sufficiently dwelt upon that gymnastics fosters discipline, develops the ability of mutual adaptation and teaches to unite the well directed individual efforts of the many into one common effort. And it has also been pointed out that all those qualities are of particularly great educational value to us Jews whose besetting faults are egotism, obstinacy, and an unwillingness to recognize the merits of any one of our own race, not to speak of submitting to his authority. But there is
THE TRANSLATOR.
one viewpoint which, in my opinion, has not been sufficiently emphasized when gymnastics is spoken of in connection with the Jew: the latter's extraordinary fitness for bodily exercises of any kind.
And here many a reader will possibly look up wonderingly and shake his head doubtingly. In all probability he will reproachfully accuse me of a proneness to paradoxes. And that would mean that we have gotten too much into the habit of seeing ourselves as the anti-Semites see us, and of repeating with criminal credulity what our foes are accusing us of. As it is, many proud Jews consider it an axiom that the Jew is pitifully awkward and lamentably weak; that he