The Maccabaean

and concise exposition of the true content and character of mediæval Jewish philosophy. He has given us an historical survey of the manner in which the philosophic system of Aristotle was successively handed down by Syrian Christians, Mohammedan Arabs and finally by the Jews who introduced it to Europe. He tell us how the Kalam influenced some Jewish philosophers, how Maimonides gave the Kalam its death-blow and how in turn Maimonides himself was discredited by Hasdai Crescas. All this by way of Introduction. The main body of the book is concerned with a detailed analysis of the philosophical systems of each of the great Jewish philosophers, of Saadia, ibn Gebirol, Bahya, Judah Halevi, the ibn Ezras, ibn Daud, Maimonides, Gersonides, Crescas, Albo, to mention but a few of them; how they interpreted Judaism and harmonized Jewish doctrines with the results of rational speculation: and in what manner each was indebted either to pure Aristotleianism, to a garbled Aristotleianism, to the Kalam, or to the Ascetic Sufis

In his preface, Dr. Husik is apprehensive lest his book prove too technical for the lay reader and too popular for the scholar. We venture the judgment that he has steered clear of both dangers. It is just what it should be, a book to be read by all profitably and with pleasure. Not the least of the book’s excellence is due to the fact that it is written in a fine English without long and involved Teutonic sentences. That wisdom and scholarship have chosen to dwell within one who is not identified with Jewish theology may be a source of annoyance in theological quarters, but the House of Israel which is not concerned with professorial squabbles may well say to Dr. Husik “Y’yvasher Cochacho.”

Music of the Goluth

Soncs oF A WANDERER, poems by P. M. Raskin; Philadelphia, The Jewish Publication Society of America.

Jews have mirrored all culturés and written in all languages. It has remained for Mr. Raskin to bring the plaintive music of the goluth within reach of English-speaking Jewry. This little volume is expressive of the vitality of the reawakened Jewish culture: it expresses the sorrow, the subdued hope of the wanderer, in the language that connotes freedom, prosperity and assimilation. The picturesqueness of the Hebrew, the pathos of the Yiddish, the unconscious nationalism of the ghetto, are brought over into delicate English verse. Mr. Raskin has many illustrious predecessors, Jews and Gentiles, who have pictured Jewish life for western people, but they have mostly pictured it through western eyes. It is because the “Songs of a Wanderer” touch the heart of him who has lived through the days of terror, and more than that teach the child of freedom the sadness of the birthplace—

Where the brightest youth is youthless,Fairest plants fade ere they bloom,

because of this power, they will retain a permanent place in our affections.

That there are faults and blemishes in the volume cannot be denied. Here a misused word, there a lame line, scar a beautiful poem. Sometimes one wishes to omit whole verses and feels that to do so would but chasten the whole. One is disappointed to find an otherwise

perfect poem closed by a redundant stanza whose only effect is anti-climax. But the next turn of the page brings a new thrill of pleasure, and at the end of it all one feels oneself under the spell of a personality, still wholesome, gentle and lovable.

Sleep, my boy, the moon is swimming In a silver stream; Dozing lakes with crystal brimming Dream a golden dream

Sleep, my boy, the birds are thrillingFrom each tree and nest:"Night is sacred, night is fillingWood and vale with rest."

Sleep, my boy, the angels mind you In your tiny bed; Earth is wide, but who will find you Room to rect vour head?

Sleep, the night is softly treading,Kindling lakes and streams;Gold the twinkling stars are shedding,Gold—in dreams, in dreams.

The bitterness of soul of "The Stranger" is expressed with a similar felicity in a vivid, imaginative dialogue —

What my name is, ask you? Why reveal my shame? On my long, long journey I forgot my name.

Wonder you I came byThis unbeaten track?Storm, by chance, has brought me,Storm will take me back.

Have I any friends here? Many a one and none; None, when I am with them, Many, when I'm gone.

The festival songs are richly appreciative of the ritual symbolism of Judaism, and of the wistful hope and pleasure of the Jewish Yom Tov; an example is “The Feast of Spring,” which appears on page 199 of the volume. There are evidences, too, of true musical qualities, as in “The Aggada,” which carries us over the “boundless sea of the great talmudic ocean” to visit beauteous Eden or the cities of old Judah; or as in the monotonous tramp of “The Wanderer.” Whether it is colorful description, fantasy or sentiment, the poet never finds it necessary to cloud his thought with obscure words. In the language of a child are expressed the emotions of a man, and as compensation for a certain lack of robust realism there is that simplicity and directness that is characteristic of all folklore.

These poems, which appear at the dawn of a brighter day, a day which has already given promise not only of freedom but also of positive reconstruction of Jewish life, will serve to remind us of the long dark years of an infinite sadness from which joy and hope were never absent. To the western Jew who has known only the sublime sorrow of a normal people’s literature, the “Songs of a Wanderer” bring the peculiar grief of a peculiar people in a characteristic minor key. Victor Corn.