The Maccabaean

It is certain that if the Torah and the Haskalah had not declined in the west of Europe there would never have developed in America such an un-Jewish Reform, and the irresponsibility and ignorance which have been so prominent in the first Jewish communities of the New World.

Conditions in Russia were entirely different. There German was a foreign language. Even the Jewish-German which the German Jews had brought there was only a product of economic and political necessities; because, as is well known, the Jews of Russia and Poland in those days traded with German countries.

Even in the Polish cities themselves the non-Jewish merchant class was chiefly German. The German language was for many centuries the commercial tongue in Poland and Lithuania, and this induced the East European Jews, who had formerly spoken Slavonic and Tartar, to begin to speak in a German dialect which made their intercourse with the Jew of Western Europe easy.

The fact that many German scholars and teachers had come from Poland and had studied in the Polish schools and Talmudic academies in Jewish-German has much weight. The conquering dialect became a kind of Jewish idiom depending on Hebrew as the former Aramaic dialect had done. It is well known (and those who are not sufficiently informed I advise to read the interesting studies of J. H. Taviev and the dictionary of Yehoash and Spivak) that everything which implicates culture, religion, knowledge and feeling in Yiddish is of Hebrew origin.

Since German culture had much influence on the Maskilim, and the Russian Government itself did much to spread German language influence the Yiddish dialect went entirely astray—although the Yiddish which a Mendele Mocher Sephorim writes is still absolutely Jewish; while the Yiddish which is written by moderns who do not think and feel Hebrew is as little Jewish as Greek was once Jewish. Greek had also corrupted the Jewish manner of expression. It is, for example, impossible for an ordinary Jew to read Dr.

Zhitlowsky's researches: he would have to spend as much time learning the new style of Yiddish as he would to learn Hebrew itself.

Until now we wished to illustrate by historic examples the theoretical side of the question. I confess, however, that the language quarrel actually concerns us Hebraists very little. We are tolerant to the Jewish-Yiddish which all Jews understand. Because if a Jew has by chance not studied in a cheder or could not attend a national Hebrew school we cannot take away from him the right (whether he be in Golus or even in Palestine) to read a newspaper which he understands or a book to instruct and sustain him. At the same time we must work against that ignorance of Hebrew culture at its source, which has always been the cause of assimilation movements, and then the language question will settle itself. Against that ignorance the pious Jew can fight with good Talmud Torahs and Yeshibahs and the modern Hebraist by Jewish schools, books, and cultural institutions.

The young Histadruth Ivrith has taken upon itself the organization of these activities, and has in the first year already accomplished much. As a result of its initiative the number of Hebrew societies has increased from five with three hundred members to twenty-seven with twelve hundred members. It has published 13,000 copies of various brochures. It has also founded the Hebrew press, Kadimah, which has already published twelve Hebrew classics, and which will bring out a whole series of original works.

Interest in Hebrew has grown all over America. Many important books have appeared in the last year; the number of Hebrew meetings has increased. The second annual convention of the Hebraists, which was held in New York, April 28th and 29th, proved that the Hebrew Renaissance has inspired the best Jewish cultural elements in the new world, and, as has been said everything, which Hebrew gains is a gain for general Jewish culture and for the Jewish national idea.

ISRAEL

Who knows the names of Babylonian kings, Assyrian warriors, or Chaldæan priests? Forever past are the Egyptian feasts, Lost in the chaos of forgotten things. Time hath o'erscattered with his cyclic wings The golden altar of each sacred beast; All prayers to Zeus have into silence ceased, And universal Rome no poet sings.

Yet hath not Israel's race been overborne; Still handing on the torch from age to age; Alone enduring since the world's first morn,— The bearer of God's ancient heritage; Triumphant over suffering and tears; Sole co-eternal with eternal years!