The times., 1901-04-07

! with some show of truth that this pill
| ability is the weak side in the Jewish
! character The readiness of the Jew 10
! be almost anything and not simply his
! own self has been one of the factors pro-
ducing certain ilI-wiIl against him Dis
| raeli was the most jingo of all imperalists
| in England; Lasker, the most ardent advo-
| cate of the newly constituted German EN-
! pire This pliabiIty is the result of the
wandering life he has led and the various
| civilizations of which he has been
part He had to find his way
| into Hellenism in Alexandria, into
Moorish culture I'm Spain. into Siav-
| ism in Russia and Poland. When the
| first wave of the modern spirit com
menced to break from France eastward
over the whole of Europe. it reached the
| Jew also. While in France the new spir-
| il was largely political, in Germany il was
more spiritual. In its political form as
well as in it's spiritual form 1t reacted not
| only upon the political condition of the
Jew, but especially upon his mental atti
tude. The new spirit was intensely mod
| ern. intensely cosmopolitan, intensely Oc-
| cidental, and intensely inductiye. The Jew
! had preserved to a great degree his de-
cient mode of thought and aspect of life.
The two forces were bound to meet As
great oak is met by the storm, so was
| Israel set upon by the fury of this terrible
onslaught 1t is of interest to see in what
manner he emerged from this storm
whether he has been able to bend to it's
| fury, to lose perhaps some of his leaves
and even some of his branches. but TO
change only in such a way as to be able
to stand upright again when the storm is
past.
This great clash OF ideas has produced
| what is known as the Reform movement.
1t had it's origin in Germany under the
spiritual influences of the regeneration of
German letters produced by such men as
Goethe, Schiller. Herder, Lessing, and
Mendelssohn. 1t was aided in a large
measure by the fact that the Government
in Germany, although distinctly opposed
to anything which initiates against the
established order of things, mixes itself
very seldom in the internal affairs of the
Jewish communities. This Reform move
ment has colored the religious develop
ment of Judaism during the three-quar-
ters OF the century which is past. The
heat of the controversy is now well-nigh
spent. Many of those who stood in the
front ranks have passed away, so that
more just estimate of its value can be
reached. 1t was a period of tremendous
upheavals. Of great physical as well as
mental pain. Many a congregation was
split in twain, many a family disrupted.
At one time it looked as if two distinct
bodies of Jews would emerge from the
struggle, and the union of Israel be de-
stroyed forever. A common enemy-anti-
Semitism-joined the two forces together
for a common defence; and the danger of
such split is now fairly a thing of the
past
The latter half of the eighteenth cen
tury found the Jews of Middle Europe at
the lowest intellectual and social point
they had up till then reached. The effect
of the long Jewish Middle Ages was plain
" visible. Few great minds lit up the
darkness and an intellectual torpor
seems to have spread its pail over every
thing. A passive uniformity of practice
prevailed in all the communities, whether
sefardic Spanish and Portuguese or Ash
kenazic German and POLISH; uniform
ity, because actual intellectual life had
been made to run in one single groove
Of Judaism in the past In the intelIectu-
al exercise which it's study necessitated,
the mind of the Jew had been given a
field In which it could rove at will Iiv-
ing apart from the rest of the world.
with wide jurisdiction over his own af-
fairs. Talmudic law in it's latest develop
ment was still the law supreme for the
Jew. The Jewish Ghetto had everywhere
IL
use was. in all the Ashkenazic communi-
ties. the Judeao-German in one of it's va
rious forms. A certain severity in evalu-
ating those things which were part of
the outside world made itself felt There
was ample time and ample occasion for
the practice of all those forms and cere-
monies with which the Judaism of the
Middle Ages had willingly and gladly
fenced in the law. There had been little
occasion for the practice of the beautiful
arts or for the cultivation OF letters. Life
in the Ghetto was not necessarily gloomy.
but it was solemn. The law was not felt
as a burden. but it required the whole in
dividual attention of those who bound
themselves by it, from early morn till late
at night, from the cradle to the grave.
There was no place for things that come
from outside, because there was no time
to devote to them.
But the new European spirit in it's
French political form was knocking hard
al the gates of the Ghetto Little by lit
tie it made its way here and there, into
all sorts of hooks and corners. 1t was
bound in time to be heard by some of those
living behind these gates. The name of
Moses Mendelssohn is indissolubly con-
nected with the history of German Juda- |
ism during the latter part of the eight
eenth century. 1t was due to him that a |
vehicle was found which the new spirit J
could use. Himself a strictly observant |
Jew, he felt the pulse of the new era The !
friend of Lessing and of Nicolai, he en- |
tered fully into the revival which was
then making itself felt. Through his trans |
lation of the Pentateuch OTIS, etc) into |
high German, he prepared the way for the |
further Introduction of German writings |
TO the Jewish masses. This was bound to /
bring with 1t larger culture and a great |
or freedom of thought. Many Of his |
friends. such as Wessely Hertz Homberg.
and David Friedlander stood by his side |
in this work With the introduction of the |
German language and German literature. |
better and more modern schools were |
needed in which secular education should |
go hand in hand with the former one-sided
religious training. David Friedander was |
the first to found a school in~the modern
sense of the term. and he was followed |
by Jacobson in 1901, at Seesen, Westpha-
liza. and at Cassel, and by Johlson. at
Frankfort, in 1914. Between the years 1888