The Maccabaean

IT is easy to portray a man whose “shadows exceed his lights.” The profusion of shadows serves to bring the luminous parts into relief. But it is very hard to portray a man who is all light, on whom there are practically no shadows. You look for deficiencies and superfluities in vain; you do not know what to emphasize and what to accentuate; you do not know which trait of his soul to signalize, which quality to choose, because you find his characteristics and his qualities as harmonious and as finely chiselled as if their possessor had toiled and labored to perfect them, to give them a certain equipoise of measure and form so that the soul might remain free from envy. Such a man can be portrayed by none but a great artist, one who can interpret the peculiar charm of a harmonious soul. The task is beyond me.

A leader of our generation. A chosen one of our people. An eminent worker in the field of our national resurrection. A forger of the path which is to lead us to our new future. One who gave himself without any reservations to our great problem, who served it faithfully and selflessly from the day he vowed allegiance to its cause up to his last breath, consecrating all his strength and his varied and multifarious talents to its solution. Assiduous, diligent, thorough, accurate, and methodical, and above all the human habitation of a beautiful soul, kind to all creatures, beloved by all who came in contact with him, a true gentleman in his demeanor, with the fastidiousness of a patrician. All these and many more attributes will not suffice to describe the personality of our Yehiel Tschlenow, who has left us now that our hopes are soaring, has died and has been gathered to his fathers in the west now that the rising sun beckons to us from the east, he who prayed with all the fibers of his fine soul that he might deserve and live to see this hour when the sun would rise in our east, that he might rejoice in its light and drink thirstily of its radiance.

Another riddle, the riddle of eternal death—and with whom is the solution? We stand astonished and amazed and ask the question to which there is no answer: why, for what reason, to what end? That is the decree, the irrevocable decree. Submit, O man, and do not question that which is hidden.

And as for me who am to consecrate a few lines to the memory of a comrade, a friend, and a brother, it is not within my power to describe the soul which I so greatly loved, honored, and cherished while it was still in our midst, radiating cordiality and warmth throughout its environment. I am not attempting to portray the soul, but only to make a sketch of the soul, adding here a stroke and there a touch as my memory dictates. Perhaps when our grief will have subsided and a new conception will have replaced the old one—the conception of Tschlenow the departed instead of the conception of Tschlenow the living —his friends and associates will collect the requisite material to raise a monument of remembrance to their great friend and associate. When they have ordered this material the artist will come to make the proper use of it.

I employ the words “their great friend and associate” not as a formality, but because I never classed Tschlenow among the mediocre, because I always considered him

a great man. He sometimes gave the impression of being mediocre only for the reasons which I mentioned above, because of the equipoise which invariably distinguished him, the wonderful harmony prevailing in his soul, and as a result of the unobtrusiveness which exists in every harmony, since harmoniousness neither startles nor dazzles, but reveals itself little by little, emanating slowly from the depths before the eyes of the exceptionally discerning and never again merging into obscurity once it has become manifest.

Such was my comrade, friend, and brother. Many did not understand him. They only felt that they were in the presence of a charming man, gentle and affectionate in his relationship with all who came in contact with him, pleasant of speech, with submissive modesty and diffident aloofness, avoiding harshness and sharp words, and contenting himself with the language of every day unadorned by flashes or even sparks, but made up of simple words, easily absorbed and digested without overmuch effort by the hearer. Men were drawn to him for they saw in him a pattern of fastidiousness, one who had nothing but good to bestow, from whose proximity they could derive naught but tranquillity and gratification.

And yet they did not understand him, because he whom they had before them was not only a charming man but a great man, a man of tremendous determination who carried out his will, a man of steadfast opinions who was able to defend them heroically, to fight for them, and to impose them on his environment by force, triumphing over all the obstacles which appeared in his path, and over all manner of opposition.

If anyone is under the impression that Tschlenow was meek and disinclined to fight he is grossly mistaken. Tschlenow did not cede an iota of his opinions if a principle was involved, and even if he sometimes appeared to compromise and to yield in the inner affairs of the organization in which he was a leader, it was not that his opinions had swerved, but because he was firmly convinced that he would finally succeed in bringing down the scale of the balance on his side. This attitude he maintained only with regard to the inner affairs of the organization. But if there was any conflict between the Zionist organization and its opponents—never once did I see Tschlenow yield. The Zionist claims were ever before his eyes and were his only standard. Under such circumstances I have seen him disguise his true disposition and nature, and wax sharp and acrimonious, speaking in another tongue. Fiery coals would issue from his lips, and he would know no pity. At such times I have heard him deliver speeches which reached the summit of oratory, to which many an orator has not attained.

And his thoroughness. In the office where he performed his Zionist work, surrounded by his friends, he was incessantly besieged by questions. But he would not relinquish a single matter until he had probed it and penetrated to its depths. When it came to questions he was not in the least diffident, not contenting himself with superficial answers, but pondering and pondering until he had