From Across the Seas
From Dr. Max Nordau
Madrid, Spain
I HAIL most cordially the appearing of The Menorah Journal with the noble and impressive program which you develop. It shows your consciousness of the new duties of the rich, free and powerful American Jewry, your readiness to assume fully the moral responsibilities which your privileged position imposes upon you, and your comprehension of the needs of the present hour. Your journal seems the promising beginning of that organization in which we are so sorely wanting and without which we will achieve nothing in the forthcoming deep transformations of the old world.
From Dr. Moses Gaster
Chief Rabbi (Haham) Spanish and Portuguese Congregations of the British Empire
I AM glad to see that you have brought out again the Menorah from the corner into which it had been thrust, that you have polished up the old candlestick, nay, even more, that you have trimmed the wick and poured the oil into the cup, that you are kindling a light which is to dissipate the darkness spiritual, more dangerous, more terrible than darkness physical. What our people really want is to be able to see that light of truth, that light of hope, of humanity, of knowledge, of idealism, which has been ours through the ages. We have never allowed our lamp to be extinguished, whether it burned in a remote corner in the ghetto, smoky, ill trimmed, even evil smelling; still there was the light sufficiently strong to illumine the pages of the Torah and the Talmud, even the pages of the writers of philosophy and science. It was quite sufficient if one lamp was kept alight. This is the greatness and the beauty of it,—that from one, one can kindle a thousand.
There is no limit to which the light cannot reach and there will be no limit, I hope, to the light which you will now spread. It will reach the remotest corner of the universities and schools of learning, nay, even more, it will bring everywhere a measure of knowledge and of truth, and above all it will illumine and warm. It will reach the eyes of those who have hitherto refused to see the beauty of their own past and the greatness of their own future. They may then learn to live in the present by the teaching of the past and by the hope of the future. Make both known.
In conclusion, I can only express the wish that you keep steadily and exclusively to Jewish questions, Jewish problems, Jewish learning. Make your readers know what they can find in Jewish literature and make the students of the various universities realize that in the libraries of Europe and America there are vast treasures accumulated which await the hand and the heart of the Jewish scholars. There are great and grave problems which await solution and the field is unlimited. Let them begin to till the ground of our own field, and turn the furrows and sow the seed, and the golden harvest is sure to repay them for their labor in the service of love and truth, and above all of devotion to Judaism.
From Norman Bentwich
Professor of International Law, School of Law, Cairo, Egypt
YOU are indeed happy in the moment of your appearance. I am not of those who regard this world war as a terrible catastrophe. I can see in it with God's grace the preparation of a great uplift of humanity and especially the coming of redemption for Israel. But the more glorious the vision of the future the greater the need of light, and more light, to illuminate the present and to enable the young generation to advance steadily towards the vision and make it reality. That is what I believe the function of the Menorah Journal to be, and your first number is an earnest of the sincerity of your aim and the goodness of your means.
The Jewish people stand on the brink of a new era in which they are to resume their true function of the spiritual teacher of mankind. And American Jewry, it is a truism to say, has a vital and a leading part to play in moulding the destiny of the Jewish people. So we may adapt the old Rabbinic saying: "He who saves the soul of a single Jewish student is as though he saved the world." The Menorah Journal in holding up the light of the Jewish spirit to the young men and women of America is doing the work of humanity.
May I express the hope that the Menorah Societies will direct the gaze of their members to the land of promise and the land of the prophets, where the inspiration of Judaism has always come and whither the hopes of Jewry have always turned. Living as I do, in the reflection of Palestine as well as in the shadow of the Pyramids, I am very conscious of the need for a continued Passover from the ideas of the various Egypts that beset the Jewish people to the message that calls us, in spirit if not in body, to the land of our fathers. To-day in Palestine the light has begun to shine brightly again. Judaism has relit there its prophetic lamp, which in centuries of stress and darkness has never been permitted to fade away altogether. In our own time the Menorah has been re-established in the Temple of the land by a new band of Maccabees. But a single branch, so to say, of the seven branches as yet shows its clear light. But if the Jewish youth wills it, the whole Menorah may be lighted and shine full and clear to the world with fresh lustre. In our day there may be a new Hanukka, a rededication of the Hebraic light—if only we will it.
