Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-04-21
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
l. C. NJ.


Albert LondreS. Translated by Will
liam Staples. New York: Richard
r. Smith, Inc.
II was setting out this time not on
tour of the world but on a tour OF
the Jews instead" Mr.. Londres' goal
the ghetto of many a great city. I'm
teresting word, ghetto" its source
Italian. A stable volume of Jewish
history held within those six letters
Its chapters drawn from the four quar-
tiers of Jewish persecution by plouS
Gentle on the one hand, by pagan con-
Queror on the other.)
From Whitechapei to Paris and Ber-
lin and Vienna, to Warsaw and Cracow
to Egypt, and, finally, to Jerusalem IT.
self Such the course of this Journey:
Why set out from the Whitechapel
quarter of Londone Because here Is
gathered probably the greatest and
certainly the most freely characteristic
of Jewish colonies within Christian city
limits Here Is the one best ntted 10
provide a measure for the others. For
within the enveloping life OF the great
city the Jew has had more freedom TO
expand both in conformity to his sur
roundings and in obedience, as well, TO
the racial instincts of which he is so
inalienably possessed. So Whitechapel
becomes the starting point OF this
tour of the Jews"
And what is the business of this en-
terprise? What the purpose of its pur-
suit? Here is the old familiar drive
of hunting down an idea. An idea i'm
bedded, primarily, in an absorbing in
terest both in Jewish history and in the
current life Of these people throughout
the Occidental world. This idea, fed
and fostered, became definite opinion.
And the opinion settled to conviction
It is this conviction that. after long
study, steps out into the open by way
of the sketches and studies comprising
THE Jew Has Come Home" The heart
of the adventure, that which gives 1t
drive and direction, is Zionism, the
dream to which has been poured a
solidifying and vitalizing stream Of per-
sonal enthusiasm and ardor and self
dedication to the reality of a New
Jerusalem for the scattered tribes OF
Israel
Now Zionism, like all other Utopian
isrns. is shaped for lure, glamour, Sc
duction. Escape is its prime promise
and assurance And escape is that
which every son and daughter OF Adam
is bent upon. Sourced in vague long
ings, in a universal nostalgia as old as
Eden, and older, escape reaches ever
forward to some Elysian future-to-
morrow. next year, any time and where
out of the gray and belittling present.
Such the Utopian dream that time and
again seeks to lift the burden of actual
humanity up from its depths.
BY sketch and episode and story. all
simple and communicable. the author
portrays the Jewish ideal fermenting
in the West. An old rabbi, come out
of the East for aims. embodies the
spirit of the early Hebrew. An in
sDired vision of Theodore HerZel pro-
iectS the body of the New Jerusalem.
Tender. sympathetic and beautiful is
this conception, this definition Of the
modern purpose of an ancient people
returned to its birthright Of soil as a
nation Of political competency and In
tellectual power.
But, beside the dream. so far as yet
from realization, in subtly simple way
are set out innumerable pictures and
records of the highly competent life of
the Jew as part of the general cur
rent life. Just as the Puritan is part
of it, or the Cavalier, or the Spanish
noble. or the high adventurer or all
the rest of us The Jew is an essential
part of the rest. In art, he leads.
The great musicians belong. chiefly,
to the Hebrew race. The great philan-
thropiSts and financiers and writer's and
philosophers are in impressive proper
ton, jews. Good citizens, good house
holders, most desirable in any part of
the world, these disciplined and self
controlled people of an ancient order.
Then. at last, this man touring Israel
takes the readers to Jerusalem. Seats
him beside the ritual of the Wailing
Wall, that tragic reminder of departed
glory. All around are people far be-
hind these progressive ZioniStS, bent
upon rebuilding a nation Obstruc-
tionistS, defeatists, suspicious, hostile
in mood and action.
And this is the point at which the
conviction with which this writer set
out upon adventure comes out to meet
the reader. The conviction that the
true glory Of the Hebrew is to use his
high gifts and powers where they have
become really at home. A separatist
by nature. Granted. But shrewd and
far-seeing. Conscious of his usefulness
where civilization is swiftly moving for
ward, imaginative enough to feel that
wherever he himself stands there is the
soil of Jerusalem there is the Towering
of the Hebrew soul A most interesting
series of views, pictures, reasonings, per-
Suasions-all bent to the great idea that
THE Jew Has Come Home" That
here is his home. That here IS where
true living has room and usefulness in
every direction.
BORN A JEW. BY Boris D. Bogen. In
collaboration with Alfred Segal.
New York: The Macmillan Co.
If they were still in vogue, the old
gods SO easy of approach, so intimate
in their dealings with man, and if they
were to say that we must give up all
but one of the qualities so laboriouSly
gained through the adventure of being
human-then in a single voice We would
cry. Take all the others, but leave me
courage!" That, without question,
would be the cry. Courage to live from
morning to night, and then on to morn
ing again through the multitudinous
assaults upon the body and spirit of
the commonest among US. That is the
one imperative. Any ones life set out
would give plain proof of this. But
here is an exceptional mans life. A
life whose viciSsitudes from start on
ward demonstrate the glory of courage;
demonstrate it's triumph also.
Born in Moscow, shut vigorously
within the ghetto of that city. A
squalid day after day of practical i'm
prisonment. What to do about it. oh,
settle down to it and die out of it Not
at all. This is one of the invincibles.
This is of the enduring tribe of Judah.
So, instead of a smudged and smolder-
ing spirit, there came in its place a
flaming fire instead. A consuming pas
sion to open out, to lend hand, to
help not only his immediate quarter,
but the wide world instead of oppres-
sion and cruelty and injustice.
And this is the story of another Rus
sian rebel among the many who have
resisted tyranny. 1t took courage, high
and invulnerable, to join the young
Russian Jews in a sense of their own
rights, political and social. Courage,
too, to leave the known-intolerable as
it was-for the unknown. To emigrate
to America. New York. Hard labor.
Small rewards. But the spirit held and
so, little by little, here a step ahead and
there another. And the boy, Boris, was
growing into the man of industry and