The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915

by Various

The Third Annual Convention of the Menorah Societies

I. The Public Meeting

THE Third Annual Convention of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association was held at the University of Cincinnati, in the city of Cincinnati, on Wednesday and Thursday, December 23 and 24, 1914. The third session, on Wednesday evening, was a public meeting in the University auditorium. Abraham J. Feldman, President of the University of Cincinnati Menorah Society, formally welcomed the convention, and introduced Chancellor Henry Hurwitz as the Chairman of the evening. Mayor F. S. Spiegel brought the greetings and welcome of the city of Cincinnati. Dean Joseph E. Harry extended a welcome in behalf of the University, and Dr. Kaufman Kohler, President of Hebrew Union College, welcomed the convention in behalf of his institution and of the Jewish community. Professor I. Leo Sharfman of the University of Michigan, President of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association, spoke on "The Menorah Movement," and Dr. H. M. Kallen of the University of Wisconsin delivered an address on "The Jews and the War." For the substance of Dr. Kallen's address see his article on [page 79]. The other speakers spoke in part as follows:

Dean J. E. Harry

IN behalf of the University of Cincinnati, I bid you welcome. I confess that I can agree with the statement made in your declaration of the nature and purpose of the Menorah Societies, that modern civilization is chiefly a product of three ancient cultures, or to be more exact, I should prefer to say two, since the Roman is but a continuation of the Greek, and we cannot understand ourselves without understanding and having direct reference to the character and work of both the Greek and the Hebrew minds.

Two principal elements have entered into the spiritual life of the modern world. The past and the present are one and inseparable, and you cannot destroy the former without doing positive damage to the latter. The roots of our civilization lie in the soil of antiquity, and you cannot destroy and disentangle the fibers of the growing tree of civilization from the far-off centuries that are gone, without injuring the whole organism. "If we were to wipe out all the records of the past, what a series of inexplicable riddles would our own history present, and if we were to blot out entirely every reference to ancient writers, or were to blow away all the perfume that has been shaken down from the vestments of those writers, how blurred and how scentless would the fairest and most fragrant pages of our own great poets and historians appear!"

What we need to-day, what our country needs more than anything else, is thorough, really liberally educated men, and not merely men who are supposed by the general public to be educated, simply because they have passed through a college, because in some quarters the business of education has, alas, fallen into the hands of men who are not themselves liberally educated; and so as an ardent advocate of the humanities, with hope that the Intercollegiate Menorah Association will contribute to the laying of greater stress upon the value of the study of the humanities in our college curriculum, I bid you God-speed, and again extend to you the cordial greetings of the University of Cincinnati.

Dr. Kaufman Kohler

I DO not know whether you have observed that Cincinnati is somewhat akin to the city of Rome as well as to the holy city of Jerusalem—it is a city with many hills. On this hill here, facing one another for friendly and harmonious coöperation, the two institutions of learning in which we especially, the Jewish community, take particular pride—the University of Cincinnati, which so prominently and in ever expanding proportion stands for the humanities, for classical culture, for the professional and scientific branches of secular knowledge, and on the other hand, the Hebrew Union College, which stands for the mother religion of civilized humanity and for the progressive spirit of Judaism and of Americanism. In this rather insignificant incident the Jewish community may well find a great principle expressed. With his face towards the East from which issues the light of day, where was cradled the faith of Israel, the Jew, ever beholding in classical wisdom and knowledge the sister of his faith, proceeded with the westward march of civilization in order to make religion, by the reason and research of the ages, a great, progressive power, ever regenerating his spiritual heritage and rejuvenating that religion of his own as it goes on through the centuries.

This fact, however, of a continual intellectual and spiritual progress of Judaism, is altogether too rarely recognized by the surrounding Christian world, even by its men of light and leading or by its seats of learning, because the New Testament is looked upon by altogether too many as the death warrant of the Old Testament, as if the sun of civilization had stood still over Israel ever since its seers and singers and sages of yore voiced the Divine message. Nor does the Jewish man of culture and college training as a rule appreciate the wondrous achievements of the Jewish genius since the very dawn of history until our day, in the whole domain of learning and science, or of ethical and religious culture.

It is therefore a highly laudable endeavor undertaken by the Intercollegiate Menorah Association to arouse the dormant spirit of self-respect in the academic Jewish youth, to stir in him the ambition to study and know this matchless history and literature, and to kindle in his soul anew that idealism which made the Jew throughout all the ages endure and brave the onslaughts of the empires and churches and the persecuting mobs, so that even to-day he is as young and as vigorous as any of the youngest races and nations in the world.

The Importance of Israel's Religion

THIS past, I say, cannot but appeal to every high-minded American, whether Christian or Jew, and your study of it will certainly meet with our warmest support and encouragement. Only, in my opinion, one thing you need, young as your association is, young in years and young in experience, and that is, a full comprehension and keen realization of the subject you have in view and a wise and right direction towards it. No one doubts or questions the sincerity of your motives or the praiseworthiness of your aims and purposes when you place on your program the study of Jewish history, culture and problems, and the advancement of Jewish ideals, but you omit that which is most essential, which is the all-encompassing force and factor of Jewish life, the real, peculiar and genuine product of the Jewish genius—religion. We have got a religion which, as has been put by Matthew Arnold, has fashioned four-fifths of the world's civilization. In omitting the idea, as expressed by Matthew Arnold, of the power that maketh for righteousness, in declaring your movement as being altogether non-religious, you run the risk of making of your endeavor an inevitable and certain failure.[G] Let me quote to you from an address delivered recently before a Jewish society in London on "Israel and Medicine" by Professor Osler, sentences that are remarkable and worth repeating. He says:

"In estimating the position of Israel in the human values, one must remember that the quest for righteousness is Oriental, the quest for knowledge, Occidental. With the great prophets of the East—Moses, Isaiah, Mahomet [he might have included Jesus of Nazareth], the word was 'Thus saith the Lord.' With the seers of the West, from Aristotle to Darwin, it was 'What says nature?' Modern civilization is the outcome of the two great movements of the mind of man, who is to-day ruled in heart and head by Israel and by Greece. From the one he has learned responsibility to a Supreme Being and love for his neighbor, in which are embraced the law and the prophets. From the other he has gathered the promise of Eden, to have dominion over the earth in which he lives."

Now let me add to this that whatever the Jew claims or possesses of culture he has borrowed from the nations and civilizations around him, whether it be architecture, the art or the mode of writing, philosophy and science, the modes of social and industrial life, all of which he has taken and assimilated into his own life.

Not so with his religious truth. This is all his own, his peculiar and genuine contribution to humanity. Thereby he has given human life its eternal value, its purpose, its goal and hope for all time.

Now it seems to me that you may as well expect of the blind to depict for you his impressions of the prismatic glories of the rainbow, or of the deaf to orate on the beauties of a Beethoven symphony, as to expect of one who lacks the sense of religion, the spirit of faith, to expound, or even to understand, the ideals of the Jew, whose history throughout the past was but one continuous glorification of the only one God, by the master works of its hundreds and thousands of men of learning and the unparalleled martyrdom of the whole people, and whose future is humanity made one by the belief in the only one God and Father. Therefore, let me give you, delegates and members of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association, the advice to continue as you started, as an academic, cosmopolitan association, yet at the same time let it be linked to the synagogue of each city as the center of the faith. Let your watch-word be true to the symbol of קומי אורי "arise and shine," and give light to all the nations. Let your inspiration and your power of enlightening the world ever come fresh from the sanctuary of faith, as of yore, and you will not only be all the more honored for this loyalty to the spirit of the past and the spirit of the American people which is religious, but the sweetest delight that comes from the classic world of beauty will reflect only the brighter light of the holiness, the beauty of holiness, that comes from Israel's one God.

Prof. I. Leo Sharfman

WE want all that is worthy in the Jewish past to be made a potent force in the American life of the present. You men and women who are students at our universities cannot perform your full duty to your universities unless you add to the richness of the university life, to the variety of its content, to its genuineness and versatility. And in the larger American community we Jews cannot perform our full duty unless we place at the disposal of our country the best fruits of the Jewish spirit. Our Menorah allegiance, then, rests on the foundation of Americanism. And insofar as, through the Menorah movement, we are succeeding in uniting by a common bond men and women who have been brought up under a great variety of circumstances and conditions, we are increasing the democratic spirit of our universities and of the larger life beyond the academic gates. Within the universities, too, the broadening effect of the Menorah idea is not limited to the student body. I can bear witness from personal experience that the university authorities, both faculty members and administrative officers, are not merely tolerating, or even mildly accepting, the work of our Menorah Societies in their midst, but are themselves being led to a better understanding of the place which the Jewish problem occupies in the larger problem of their universities and of the American community for whose service they are training the youth of the land.

Menorah and Religion

I HAVE said that the aim of the Menorah movement is the study and advancement of Hebraic culture and ideals. The culture of a people is but the permanent expression of its ideals in the various activities of life. Religion constitutes one of the most important of human activities, and we in the Menorah Societies are fully cognizant of its fundamental importance. Indeed, we recognize that the ideals of the Jewish people are perhaps expressed more truly, more profoundly, more eloquently in our religious literature than in any other manifestation of the Jewish genius. We should not be charged with excluding religion, merely because we aim to include more than religion in our purposes and activities.

I happen at the present time to be teaching at the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor. We have there a Menorah Society, devoted to the general object to which all our Menorah Societies are devoted. We listen to speakers and engage in discussions on Jewish history, Jewish literature, Jewish religion, and current Jewish social, economic and political problems. Side by side with the Menorah Society there exists a Jewish Student Congregation, a body of men and women of which I feel it a privilege to have been one of the organizers and to be a member at the present time, which devotes itself entirely to religious activity, to regular weekly worship. The two organizations do not conflict in any way. It is significant that about ninety-five per cent, if not more, of the members of the Michigan Menorah Society attend regularly the services of the Jewish Student Congregation. Unfortunately, not so large a percentage of the members of the congregation attend the meetings or are members of the Michigan Menorah Society. In the course of time, the relationship between the two organizations will doubtless be adjusted more satisfactorily. But in the experience at Michigan we have a concrete illustration of the spur to religion which Menorah men derive from their participation in Menorah work.

The ideal of the Menorah Societies is a non-partisan ideal. We do not stand for Zionism or anti-Zionism; we do not urge the acceptance of reform Judaism or conservative Judaism or orthodox Judaism; we do not favor the German Jew as against the Russian Jew, or vice versa, nor do we appeal to one social class as against another. We want the Menorah ideal to be broad enough to include every Jew. We do not exclude religion as such from the scope of our interests; we but exclude any insistence upon a particular sect or branch or kind of Judaism. We avoid all partisan activity which may tend to disorganize our Jewish students, which may tend to divide them. That is all.

A Plea for Tolerance

I BELIEVE that what we need in our universities, what we need in the Jewish community, is more insistence upon Judaism and more light upon the inspiration which Judaism can bring us, and less insistence upon the particular kind of Judaism which you or I or some one else may consider the acme of truth. Indifference to religion and not error in religion is the great danger of these modern times. If we really want religion, if we want to stir again the Jew's traditional passion for religion, if we want to inspire once more the Jew's genius for religion, let us try to understand all aspects and all manifestations of it, let us bend our efforts to a renaissance of religious influence. The future of the Jew in this country will not be determined by the theories or the practices of any one group or sect of Jews. The result will be a composite result, to which the reform Jew and the Zionist, the orthodox Jew and the anti-Zionist, will alike contribute. Let us leave it to the growing generation to determine for itself the content of the theory of life best suited to the future destiny of the Jew. At least, within our university walls let us be tolerant, let us be liberal-minded, let us listen to and understand every man's point of view.

Mr. Hurwitz

IN the free and honest expression of adverse views which we have heard to-night, this, indeed, has been a characteristic Menorah meeting. It may fittingly be closed by a word from one of our staunchest friends, one of our staunchest friends because he is an ardent and public-spirited Jew and a patriotic American, Justice Irving Lehman of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, the Chairman of the Graduate Menorah Committee. He addresses this word to the convention:

"I am very sorry that I am unable to attend the convention of the Association this year. I feel that during the past year we have made some progress upon which you have reason to congratulate yourselves, but we must remember that our movement is still far from having the force and power which I think it deserves. We have a great and difficult task to perform if we are to succeed in bringing back to the Jewish youth a pride in their Jewish heritage and a knowledge of their Jewish past, and I know that such work is worthy of all effort. I trust that your convention may possess the spirit and the wisdom necessary to further the work, and I wish to renew to you my assurance of willing co-operation."

II. The Luncheon

THE fifth session of the Convention was a luncheon in the Hotel Gibson, attended by the delegates, university students and graduates in Cincinnati, and members of the Faculties of the University of Cincinnati and the Hebrew Union College. Prof. I. Leo Sharfman, President of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association, was the Toastmaster. Chancellor Hurwitz spoke for five minutes upon the purposes and progress of the Menorah movement. President Abraham J. Feldman of the University of Cincinnati Menorah Society expressed gratification at the honor accorded to his Menorah Society by the Convention and appealed to the graduates and prominent members of the community present for support in the work of the Cincinnati Menorah Society. The other speakers were Dean Joseph E. Harry of the University of Cincinnati, Dr. Moses Barron, Representative from the University of Minnesota, Dr. Louis Grossmann of Hebrew Union College, Dr. Samuel Iglauer, graduate of the University of Cincinnati, Walter M. Shohl, graduate of Harvard University, Dr. Kaufman Kohler, President of Hebrew Union College, Prof. Julian Morgenstern of Hebrew Union College, Dr. H. M. Kallen of the University of Wisconsin, and Dr. David Philipson of Hebrew Union College. Following are somewhat abridged reports of the speeches:

Dean J. E. Harry

I DID not know that I was going to be called upon today, or I should certainly have tried to fortify myself, as the old darky in Virginia said when his master sent him down to another part of the plantation to see if the rebels were fortifying the place: "Massa, they am not only fortyfying it; they am fiftyfying it!"

I am glad that our Chancellor here to my right said that the speeches were to be brief. I think that an after-dinner speaker who makes a long speech ought to have about the same punishment that the member of parliament mentioned when he introduced a bill, "The only way to stop suicide is to make it a capital offense, punishable by death."

But I have always tried to avoid redundancy of expression. I would never say a "wealthy plumber," nor a "poor poet," nor for that matter a "poor professor."

"Vessels of wrath, we pedagogues;

Better we were dead,

Who, by the wrath of Peleus' son,

Must earn our daily bread."

Nor would I say an "interesting Menorah Association meeting." That they are interesting goes without saying, if we can judge from the one we had last night.

I am exceedingly interested in real culture, and being an American, and knowing, as I do, what the Jews in America can do for the advancement of learning, of knowledge and of the humanities, I am interested in the Menorah movement, which will tend to bring this about; and it is when we reflect upon the war in Europe today, with all its sickening horrors and what that means to culture (we can hardly comprehend it yet), what an obstacle to learning, that we may exclaim with that old bibliophile, Richard de Bury:

"O pacis auctor et amator altissime! dissipa gentes bella volentes quæ super omnes pestilentias libris nocent."

And by "libris" he meant culture.

Dr. Moses Barron

MINNESOTA brings its greeting to the Intercollegiate Menorah Association as one of the very earliest Menorah Societies. It was really originated in 1903, when a handful of students in the University found it desirable to satisfy certain longings by taking up the study of Jewish history and literature. Some of us had found that it was of little avail to cry over the ashes of the past, and we thought that it would be much more proper to try and study the history, the literature, the ideals of the past for the inspiration to be found there, which might better fit us to cope with the problems of the present and the future. Our Society has grown from a mere handful to an enthusiastic company, so that we have from fifty to seventy-five, and even a hundred, attending our regular meetings. I give this fact simply to show what a profound influence the work of the Menorah has been, what an influence it necessarily must have in the future, in promulgating Jewish culture, Jewish thought and ideals.

Dr. Louis Grossmann

I AM reminded by our Chairman of the time when he was still a student at Harvard, in the earliest days of the Menorah movement, when I addressed the Menorah Society there. It was in the room of the Chancellor, unless I am mistaken, and there were a number of students. They were grouped about, some in chairs, some sitting on the floor, some perched on window sills, while others improvised seats on the furniture. I felt myself patriarchal in the midst of these young men. It was a remarkable scene and it was a remarkably helpful evening, helpful and refreshing to me. The pulses of youth always beat high and I caught the elation of it. Who would not have been touched by it? Some of these young men have since become leaders in thought and action, and I am not surprised.

Let me make a confession as to that evening. I not only felt a thrill but made also some observations. These young men had their ideals, but they had also their difficulties. And they spoke of them. We had an exchange of thought and of candor such as comes to a man in the ministry and to a teacher of students but rarely. They told me of their doubts. Young men, serious young minds, always will have their doubts. They want to earn their convictions. I hope the day will never come when young men will not insist on seeing things. These young men were quick-witted and ready with repartee and counter-argument, and I saw in each eye a glint of an ideal. The debate was strong, but the ideals were stronger.

The Power of Ideals

IDEALS are pulses that beat in their own way. An ideal is a fact of the soul; it is more than a definition or an argument. An ideal is always very certain and nobody wants to disprove it, nor can.

I notice the Menorah Association has for its aim the cultivation of ideals. It is natural that young men, with red blood in them, should hold dear the precious dreams of what might and should be. As I look upon ideals now, through the perspective of years, I see they have both strength as well as limitations. But I know that, however much life and experience challenges them, they are the best force in us. I respect and value them so much that I deplore the waste of the least of them. An ideal is a moral ambition, a great wish of a true, even if a bit naive, soul. And it should have the right of way.

Every work in life implies stern necessity and a fine wish. I am reminded of a bridge in Berlin which the Germans have built with inimitable art and truth. There are four groups, each at a corner. On one an elderly man stands erect and writing. It is History, stern and real. At his side stands a boy, lithe and graceful. There are ideals just as much as Law in the affairs of men. On the other side of the bridge stands another symbol of the two forces in Life: a man carrying a bundle, a bent man, who has borne the brunt of the pioneer days, and next to him also a youth. Commerce, however sordid, still implies morality and the generous side of man. On the third side stands the solemn figure of Religion, sober and haggard, the symbol of Faith and martyrdom. And the young man, next to it, seems sprightly and strong. Why must Religion be interpreted as dispensing comfort alone? Should it not also give strength and joy? In the last corner stands Pestalozzi, the teacher, and a boy looks up into his kind face. We crave for action and capability more than for knowledge and facts. And we crave for love more than for truth, and the real truth brings affections and enthusiasm.

In the meetings of your Association you speak often of ideals, you speak of them fervently. But ideals are not merely academic. They are personal. An ideal becomes yourself, if it is yours at all. It is a dynamic force within you. It pervades your whole being. It is an unseen but a very telling strength. It directs you, and it sends you on your errand of life. You cannot rest satisfied merely to know your ideal and to speculate about it. It is the engine of warfare in your career. Study ideals, not to contemplate and analyze, but to emulate them and to fill yourself with them. You have work to do. And work is more insistent than philosophy. You have work to do which no one else can do for you, or may do for you. An ideal is your Self at the highest power.

You with fresh energies, you with the clear eye of healthy youth, you with unoppressed hearts, you at the beginning of life, you should go at your work splendidly, directly, forcefully. The real idealist is a man of action, of untiring activity. Do things and you verify what you plan. You have the privilege of youth. Have also the pride of youth. Keep it sweet, but keep it also strong.

Dr. Samuel Iglauer

THE Menorah Society appeals to me as a college graduate not only for many of its positive virtues but also for some of its negative merits. It is not in any sense a social organization, and above all it is not a secret society. Now I have my own peculiar views about secret societies in universities, and I do not believe that they tend to promote college spirit and college unity. It has been well said that in these societies those who are in any particular societies are brothers, while every one else who belongs to another society, or to no society whatever, is just a step-brother. To my mind that is not a good spirit in an American institution.

It seems to me that, having in this city a Hebrew Union College with a gifted faculty, we should establish at our University a Department of Semitics. Since the University is a public school, an institution supported by public taxation, it certainly could not affiliate directly with a sectarian institution, but I see no reason why the professors in the Hebrew College, if they are not already overworked like the students, should not be able to conduct courses at the University itself, and I believe such courses would promote the Menorah movement more than anything else you could do. I think you would attract students from far and wide to the University of Cincinnati, and you would thereby achieve one of the ends for which you are working.

Mr. Walter M. Shohl

IT is gratifying to me to attend this meeting of the Menorah, because, as the Chairman has said, I heard the flapping of the wings of the stork at its birth. I recall very well the preliminary meetings that we had when the organization of the Menorah Society at Cambridge was first spoken of. At that time I was one of the doubters; I held back. There were in Cambridge a number of societies, social primarily, that did not desire members of our faith among their number. I felt that a movement which was composed entirely of Jewish men would be mistaken for an effort at a Jewish fraternity that was to take the place of the fraternities in which we were not welcome. The other men, however, felt that we could have a society the purposes of which had nothing to do with social matters, and that we could bring out all that was good in Jewish matters of culture and develop a society to promote those interests. So at first somewhat reluctantly, I joined in with the movement, and the result has justified their farsightedness, and I am sorry now that I was only a "trailer" in the beginning.

The position of the Menorah movement and what it stands for calls to mind a story that was told in Montreal a couple of years ago by Lord Haldane, who came to America to attend a meeting of the American Bar Association. A part of the story was recited in verse (which I do not recall exactly) and had to do with an Englishman who was taken prisoner in one of the countries of the Far East, and was offered his choice between conversion to the religion of his captors or death. He was a man who had no particular religious feelings; he was not religious when at home. However, he felt that first and foremost he was an Englishman and that if he were to do anything base it would reflect upon all those ideals which were so dear to him, and therefore he cast in his lot and chose against the change of religion. So, too, with some of us who perhaps are not religious in a formal way; the realization of the great things that have been accomplished in the past by Jews, the Jewish historical background, is in itself a shield to us, and the realization of what Judaism is and stands for must act to prevent us from doing something that would be unworthy of ourselves and of the religion of which we are a part.

Dr. Kaufman Kohler

THIS comes rather unawares, but I wish to be very brief in stating that, while I listened to the very interesting and suggestive remarks that were made all along this table, and also on recalling what we heard last night, I feel glad, after all, from the point of view of the Hebrew Union College, that the Intercollegiate Menorah Association has come here to make propaganda for its work, at the same time receiving perhaps new direction and new ideas about the work they have so nobly begun. The fact that the work—started, as we heard, at Harvard in 1906—has made such progress shows that at least there was something in the young Jewish student at the colleges that called for the creation of such an association and such kind of work. Perhaps I may say that those who had their misgivings as to the tendencies of the Menorah Association are now at least informed that some of these misgivings or suspicions were not well founded. I personally will say that I had the impression that there was too much of nationalism or Zionism behind the movement, and that the movement was not, from the point of view of the Hebrew Union College or my humble self, one deserving encouragement and support. I have learned to change some of my views and some of my impressions as to the purpose and intention of this movement. There is a well-known quotation, for those who know a little German:

"Das sind die Weisen,

Die vom Irrtum zur Wahrheit reisen;

Das sind die Narren,

Die beim Irrtum beharren."

I am not one of those who insist on views once maintained though later found faulty. I am rather ready to change my views, especially after what I heard today from my honored neighbor (Prof. I. L. Sharfman) and from what he said last night that the religious idea of Judaism is not ignored but is held in view.

All Jews who are Jews must believe that Judaism stands for an uncompromising monotheistic truth, while the world around us has compromised the same. Therefore we, as Jews, must always insist upon the maintenance of the pure monotheistic idea for which we suffered and struggled, and for which our fathers died. We must maintain this as the mainstay and vital principle of Judaism. For this very reason, and for no other, we insist, especially from the point of view of a Jewish theological college, that this idea of a pure Jewish religion, the pure monotheistic idea, must be held unshakenly and without any change or any concession. And for that very reason we could not and will not say that race is everything. We cannot admit that a pure race is the best, and that a pure Jew is he who has maintained solely everything Jewish and not allowed the Greek culture to be assimilated in order to sublimate and spiritualize and idealize the truth inherited. For Ruppin and the Nationalists who follow him, the poor Jews, the ghetto Jews, of Russia who speak Yiddish and live only an exclusive narrow life, are five-fifths Jews, while the Jews in free and civilized lands are only half Jews. Now against this, we of the Hebrew Union College, we who represent progressive or reformed Judaism, must protest. We must insist that the Jewish race, the Jewish people or nation, if you want to call it so, can form only the body; Judaism, the Jewish religion, is the soul. And we will always stand not merely for the body, not merely for the material side, not merely for race, which is the lowest kind of life, but for the spirit, the soul of Judaism, and that is its religious truth.

Prof. Julian Morgenstern

I BELIEVE that it is one of the positive aims of the Menorah Society to recognize the Jewish side of much that enters, or should enter, into our daily life, to develop our full consciousness of all that is essentially and fundamentally Jewish, and thus enable us to live positive and constructive Jewish lives. It is a noble aim, to which I unrestrictedly subscribe. Whenever I hear public speakers or writers pat Jews and Judaism on the back, and patronizingly tell us, "Oh, you Jews are all right," I am, as no doubt most of us are, deeply chagrined, to use a mild expression. What we want is not that others should appreciate us and tell us that we are all right. What we want, and what we need, is that we should appreciate ourselves and that we should take ourselves seriously and at our full value. Not that we should over-appreciate ourselves and think ourselves alone the salt of the earth. There is such a thing as over-appreciation that must in the end lead to futility and vanity. But equally, there is such a thing as self-depreciation, and to a certain extent I cannot but feel that we Jews have been more or less guilty of that in the past, have more or less, particularly in our college and university life, assumed a deprecating attitude, apologizing as it were for our existence as Jews, and, probably unconsciously, have kept the fact of our Judaism in the background, and suffered our education and our culture to influence almost everything but our Jewish knowledge and our Jewish life.

For right appreciation, which shall be neither over-appreciation nor under-appreciation, but true appreciation, based upon a correct estimation of all essentials, the first requisite is knowledge, thorough knowledge of all conditions, forces and influences. And the second requisite is pride, pride in this knowledge and in the object of this knowledge. And this, translated into the Menorah language, means, as I understand it, correct knowledge of Judaism, of our Jewish history, our Jewish past, our Jewish heritage, our Jewish religion, and pride in all this Judaism—a knowledge and pride that alone can enable us to know what Judaism truly is, and what its work and its mission for the present and the future must be, that alone can enable us to live positively and constructively as Jews and perpetuate our Judaism for the blessing of ourselves, our children, and all mankind. So I interpret the Menorah movement. And I heartily welcome such a movement, whose aim is the awakening of our Jewish college young men and women to a wholesome and genuine appreciation of themselves, of the Jewish side of their lives, of their Jewish consciousness and Jewish obligations, of the full meaning and responsibility imposed upon them by their subscribing to the name Jew, and their adherence to the religion of our fathers. We must look to our college-bred Jewish men and women to become the guiding spirits in our Judaism of to-morrow and of all the future. And I say, "Thank God for any movement that must surely lead to this goal."

Dr. H. M. Kallen

SINCE this seems to be the occasion for reminiscence, I want to take the liberty of recalling for you an episode of the formation of the Menorah Society at Harvard. It turned on the question of the right form of stating the object of the Society and you will remember perhaps that the object is stated in these terms: "The Harvard Menorah Society for the study and advancement of Hebraic culture and ideals"—not Jewish, not Judaistic, but Hebraic. The persons who agitated the use of the term Hebraic had certain very definite literary and historic and social relationships in mind.

To begin with, the word Judaism, in the English language, stands exclusively for a religion. It is co-ordinate with the word Christianity, the word Buddhism, the word Zoroastrianism, with any word that stands exclusively for a religion. Now in the history of the Jewish people, there was a time when Judaism did not exist, and if I understand the gentlemen who represent the Reform sect correctly—I speak under correction—the intention of the Reform movement is a reversion in fact to the religious attitude of the pre-Judaistic period in the history of the religion of the Jewish people. It is "prophetic" or "progressive Judaism" for which they stand, I gather, in contrast with the "Talmudical Judaism," of the larger orthodox sect. But the period of the great prophets is not the period of Judaism, and strictly speaking, the term Judaism excludes the prophetic element as an active force in Jewish life. This is significant, and to me the significance seems tremendous, for so far as my personal sympathies are concerned they go entirely with the prophetic aspects of Judaism, or better, of Hebraism.

Hebraism and Judaism

HEBRAISM and Judaism are words now in the English language and their usage is determined for us entirely by the writers who become authoritative either by their style or through the weight of their opinion, and this usage has given the term Hebraism a meaning such that it stands for the entire spirit of the Jew, not only in religion but in all that is Jewish; in English the term Hebraism covers the total biography of the Jewish soul, while the term Judaism stands only for a portion of it. Now the Jewish soul is the important thing, but no one has ever met a soul without a body (at least the people who claim they have met it are still required, for belief, to show evidence more than they have thus far shown); generally speaking, soul and body are co-ordinate and mutually imply each other. You cannot have one without the other. This is even more the case when you are dealing not with an individual but with a people. Hence it is the history of the Jewish body-politic with which Hebraism and its components, including Judaism, co-ordinate.

For this reason the gentlemen who stated the object of the Society in the constitution of the Harvard Menorah Society were compelled to take into consideration the following historic fact: There was a time in the history of mankind when religion and life were coincident. You know that the prophets were reformers. The orthodox religion which they fought was the religion of the land. They were progressive religionists, just as the gentlemen who are in the Reform sect to-day claim to be progressive religionists. When they established their religion, it became the religion of the whole nationality, for all ancient religion is national religion. Religion for the Greeks, and religion for the Jews, and religion for the Syrians, and for the Babylonians, and the Romans, was essentially national and political, and the political nationalism of religion in the time of the Roman Empire was the immediate basis for the persecution of the Jews by the Romans. The latter persecuted the Jews not primarily because they disliked the Jews, but because the Jews were a political danger in their refusal to worship the representative of the State in the shape of the Emperor. But in the development of civilization, religion became detached from the totality of civilized living. In the progressive division of labor religion became specialized. The priestly group learned to confine itself more and more to the "things of the spirit"—cult, ritual, dogma, while the other elements in civilization loomed larger and larger. Religion remained social, but society was no longer religious. Life was secularized. I think that the representatives of the Reform sect, in one of their conferences, declared that America is not a Christian country. In so doing they acknowledged this fact.

Continuity of the Jewish Spirit

THROUGHOUT the history of the Jewish people, there is a continuity of spirit which is very different from the continuity of form that attends both the secular and the religious developments of Jewish life. This is the same in both these aspects of Jewish life—in the secular Jewish poetry and thought of the middle ages and up to the present day. Even a Bergson, ostensibly a Frenchman, expresses in his philosophy what is essentially the Hebraic conception of the nature of reality and the destiny of man. From Amos through Job, through the philosophers of the middle ages, to Ahad Ha-'Am there is a clear and accountable continuity. Finally, there is the development of the whole of the secular life of modern Jewry, in Yiddish and in Hebrew. Yiddish may be unpleasant, but Yiddish is no less the speech of the Jews than English, no less the speech of the Jews than Aramaic, and Arabic and Ladino, and all of these have acquired literary and qualitative characteristics which are identical as expressions of the spirit of the Jew, of the Hebraic spirit.

This may be seen generally in the case of Yiddish alone. Yiddish, as you know, is a German dialect; it is middle high German in its base, and German is an inflected language; its rhythms are essentially long, periodic, indeterminate, radically different from the rhythms of Hebrew, involving a different kind of co-ordination and mode. But compare Yiddish with German, and you find quite an antagonistic literary quality. Yiddish reads like the Psalms, and the Bible, and the Talmud; it doesn't read like German until it is Germanized. The whole genius of the tongue has been altered by Jewish use so that its spiritual quality has taken on the quality of the race that uses the tongue, and its literary kinship has become Hebraic.

Again, there is this whole mass of neo-English, neo-Russian, neo-German literatures which, written by Jews, deal with the life of the Jews, with their interests and character. This is not religious. What is its relation to Jewry? Yet again, there is any number of Jewish individuals, among whom I must count myself, who find it impossible to adjust their consciences with any official type of theological doctrine, who are interested in discovering the truth, and are compelled to acknowledge that no truth has been discovered finally, once and for all; there are hundreds and thousands such. What is to be their relation to their people if Jews are to be considered members merely of Judaistic sects? Yet Jews they are, and if they do not contribute directly to Judaism, they do contribute to Hebraism.

Hebraism stands not for that particular expression of the Jewish mind, religion, but for all that has appeared in Jewish history, both religious and secular. The term Judaism stands for that partial expression of the Jewish genius which is religious.

The Ethical Motive of Judaism

IT has been said that the genius of the Jew is entirely religious. I do not think that that is historically a demonstrable proposition. For the dominant motive even in Judaism is not a religious motive. It is an ethical motive. Judaism does not conceive its God as requiring man to be damned for his glory. It conceives its God as an instrument by the worship of whom "thy days may be lengthened in the land." Righteousness and not salvation is the aim even of the Jewish religion. Hebraism is the name for this living spirit which demands righteousness, expressed in all the different interests in which Jews, as Jews, have a share—in art, science, philosophy and social organization and in religion. Hebraism, hence, is a wider term than religion and its continuity embraces, but is not embraced by, the continuity of religion.

Now the Harvard Menorah Society, taking this fact into consideration, made use, because of the tradition of English usage, of the term "Hebraic." It recognized that since Hebraism is more comprehensive than Judaism, many people might be Hebraists who are not and need not be Judaists. It refused to exclude them from a share in Jewish life and an opportunity for Jewish service. The organization goes on the principle—both the Intercollegiate and the constituent Societies—that nothing Jewish is alien to it. For this reason the Menorah takes no sides; for this reason it is Hebraic and not Judaistic. For this reason it welcomes everything Jewish without exception—theological and secular, Russian, German, French, English. It requires only that a thing shall be Jewish, that it shall be a possible part of the organic total we call Hebraism.

Hebraism is the flower and fruit of the whole of Jewish life. Its root is the ethnic nationality of the Jewish people, and with this also the secularizing reformers agree when they prohibit and discourage the marriage of Jew with Gentile.

Many of us, however, are not content with merely the status quo. Throughout the nineteenth century it has thrown us into a series of dishonorable compromises. We want a condition—I speak now for myself and not for the Menorah—we want a condition in which the genius of the Jew, the Hebraic spirit, may express itself without any need of compromise. The orthodox Jew, at least, retains his integrity with his darkness. But we are in danger of losing our integrity. We concede to our environment point after point. But we are not liberated in spirit by these concessions; we are merely turned into amateur Gentiles. The orthodox sectary makes no concession to environment, and tends to petrify and die. The reformed sectary makes too many, and tends to dissolve and die. This is the penalty for the status quo.

Life, to be sure, consists of compromise and concession. But for integral living we must make them as masters, not serfs. There must be one place where the ancestral spirit of the Jew will not need to adapt itself to the world, but will, like the English or French spirit, adapt the world to itself. That place is determined nationally, just as the places of all European culture are determined nationally and racially.

The Aspiration for a Jewish State

PRIDE in ancestry is not pride of race, but pride in the spirit of the race, and pride of ancestry is not pride merely of background, but pride in the obligations that ancestry sets. All aristocrats have one motto—it is noblesse oblige. This must be the motto of the Jew. We must hence carry our obligation in the spirit of the prophets, which is not primarily a theological spirit, but a purely humane spirit, for which the necessity of man determines the invocation of God; in which the ideal of a free and happy humanity, in a just and democratic society, is the dominating ideal; in which a righteous Jewish state is a persistent aspiration. This is the Hebraism which must underly all the activities of the Menorah Association.

This Hebraism, academically realized through study, must be realized in the lives of individuals through work, as Dr. Grossmann has well said, and in the life of the great Jewish mass in a free Jewish state. Every ideal we acquire from the past must be turned into a fact of the present. Noblesse oblige!

Dr. David Philipson

I AM reminded that this day marks the one hundredth anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Ghent—one hundred years of peace between English-speaking peoples. I need to be reminded of this after the speech that has just been made, because much that was said has quite fired my fighting spirit—but this is a day of peace and it might not be quite in the spirit of this anniversary day to say all I might otherwise say in answer to the points that have been made and with which I differ radically.

There are some things in Dr. Kallen's eloquent address that I do believe, but there are many more things with which I do not agree. But let that be as it may, I was very much interested in his remark, that the "Reform sect," as he is pleased to call us, harks back to the prophets. This has been claimed frequently by the reformers themselves, but he puts a new interpretation upon it; he says the prophets were pre-Judaistic. This is the Christian point of view. They claim that Judaism was the growth of the post-exilic period, but we reformers interpret the term Judaism altogether differently.

The Significance of Reform Judaism

JUDAISM means for us the Jewish religion and all that this implies; if the Reform movement in its beginnings went back to prophetism it was simply for this reason—that the pioneers of the Reform movement recognized that the Jews had fallen into the very condition that Dr. Kallen deprecates, namely, they had gotten away from life inasmuch as they had been confined to the ghetto where they had been excluded from the currents of contemporary life. Judaism had become a ghetto religion, and because of this divorce between life and religion the Reform movement arose. The Reform movement is not simply a matter of creed. It affects the whole life of the Jew. One of its basic principles is that the religion of the Jew must square with his life; the needs of the Jew in the modern environment must be taken into consideration by Jewish leaders; Reform Judaism, far from making a separation and raising a barrier between the Jew and life, as those who call us reformed sectarians like to say—quite to the contrary, reconciles the Jew to the civilization in which he is living and wherein his children are growing up. This, to my mind, is the great significance of the Reform movement, and I believe that all those who truly understand it look upon it in that way.

The Reform movement, as the movement for religious emancipation, was the accompaniment of similar emancipatory movements affecting the Jews at the close of the eighteenth century. First there was the linguistic emancipation when under the leadership of Moses Mendelssohn the Jews of Germany discarded the use of the German-Jewish jargon or Yiddish, the language of the Jew's degradation, (for there would have been no such thing as Yiddish had the Jew not been degraded and excluded as he was in the countries of Europe) and began the employment of pure German. Secondly, there was the educational emancipation. The Jews had been educated in chedarim where they received instruction only in Hebrew branches and no so-called secular education whatsoever. This separated the Jew from the culture of the world. At the close of the eighteenth century German Jews began to attend schools and universities. Gradually this took place also in other countries. Thirdly, there was the civil or political emancipation, when after the French Revolution the countries of western Europe, one after the other, accorded the Jews the rights of men. The Reform movement or, in other words, the religious emancipation, is simply the result of great world forces, as embodied in these various aspects of emancipation, and for this reason the Reform movement, far from being simply a matter of creed or theological belief, made the Jew a citizen of the world and fitted him for the modern environment.

The "Body and Soul" of Jewry

NOW there is one other point made by the previous speaker to which I feel that I must refer and that is the matter of "body and soul." This is a favorite phrase of Zionist writers and speakers as emphasizing the difference between Zionists and reformers. We reformers also believe that the body Jewish is necessary, but in a sense different from the Zionistic claim that the Jewish nation must be re-established. I as a reformer and a non-Zionist also use the term "the Jewish people," but in the sense of a "religious people," not a "political people." This involves a vital distinction—the distinction between religionism and nationalism. Yes, I also believe that the body, the religious community, is necessary. The reform rabbinical conference declared against intermarriage for the very reason that it is all important that the Jewish people, the mamleket kohanim, the goy kadosh, be the vessel embodying the religious idea, the spirit. But let it be understood clearly that nationally we are poles apart from the Zionists. Nationally I am an American. I also feel that we ought not to have hyphenated Americans, but Americans pure and simple. In that sense I am nationally an American without a hyphen. Religiously I am a Jew, and religiously I am part and parcel of the Jewish people with whom my religious fortunes are intertwined. Further, I feel very much as Dr. Kallen does in regard to our duty towards the Jews made destitute by the murderous European war. They have none else to look to and we must help them; for whatever may be our differences, we must stand united in this pressing duty of the hour, this work of mercy. But may God speed the day when the Jews in Poland, Russia and Roumania will receive full rights so that nationally they may be considered Poles, Russians or Roumanians as are all others in those lands, as is the case here in free America. To my mind this is the only effective solution to the so-called Jewish problem in those countries.

Freedom is the Messiah that is still to come to the Jews in the lands where they are oppressed, so that everywhere they may be at one in the rights of citizenship with their fellow countrymen, differing from them in their religion alone. This is the great distinction I desired to draw between the Jew nationally and the Jew as a member of a religious people; this "religious people" is the body of which Judaism is the soul.

Prof. Sharfman

I AM constrained to close this meeting with a statement similar to that made by our Chancellor at the conclusion of the public meeting last evening. This was a typical Menorah discussion. We are an open forum for all points of view. We are glad to hear Dr. Kallen's opinions; we are glad to hear Dr. Philipson's opinions. I am sure that out of this clash of views will come a better understanding of the Menorah idea, a truer and deeper realization of the strivings of our Menorah movement.

III. The Business Sessions

First Session

CALLED to order in the Faculty Room, McMicken Hall, at 11 A.M., by President I. Leo Sharfman. N. M. Lyon, of the University of Cincinnati, was appointed Secretary pro tem.

Upon the presentation of credentials, the following were seated as the Representatives of their respective Menorah Societies in the Administrative Council: College of the City of New York, George J. Horowitz; Columbia University, M. David Hoffman; University of Illinois, Sidney Casner; University of Michigan, Jacob Levin; University of Minnesota, Dr. Moses Barron; Ohio State University, Herman Lebeson; University of Wisconsin, Dr. Horace M. Kallen. And the following were seated as Deputies: Clark University, Philip Wascerwitz; Harvard University, George A. Dreyfous; Johns Hopkins University, Jerome Mark; New York University, S. Felix Mendelson; University of North Carolina, N. M. Lyon; University of Pennsylvania, Joseph Salesky; Penn State College, H. L. Lavender; University of Texas, Jacob Marcus; Western Reserve University, Sol Landman.

The applications for admission into the Association of the Menorah Societies at Brown University, University of Cincinnati, Hunter College, University of Maine, the Universities in the City of Omaha, Radcliffe College, Valparaiso University, and University of Washington were presented. After due consideration of the facts in each case and the statements of the University authorities, all of the applications were accepted and the Menorah Societies named were formally admitted into the Association by the unanimous vote of the Administrative Council.

Upon the presentation of their credentials, the following were seated as Representatives: University of Cincinnati, Abraham J. Feldman; the Universities in the City of Omaha, Jacques Rieur; Valparaiso University, Florence Turner. And the following were seated as Deputies: Radcliffe College, S. Marie Pichel; Hunter College, Naomi Rasinsky.

The role of Representatives and Deputies was read by the Secretary, and the dues of the several Menorah Societies to the Intercollegiate Menorah Association for 1915 were paid.

Chancellor Henry Hurwitz read a letter of greeting to the Convention from Justice Irving Lehman of New York, Chairman of the Graduate Advisory Menorah Committee. (See [page 125].)

Second Session

Called to order by President Sharfman at 3 P.M. in the Faculty Room, McMicken Hall. Chancellor Hurwitz delivered the report of the Officers for 1914.

Abstract of Officers' Report for 1914

In his report in behalf of the Officers, the Chancellor referred to the organization in the past year of the eight Menorah Societies which were admitted into the Intercollegiate Menorah Association at the previous session of the Convention, making in all thirty-five constituent Societies, every one having arisen spontaneously at its college or university, with the full approval and encouragement of the authorities. Additional Societies are in the process of formation at several other universities.

With reference to the organization of Graduate Menorah Societies, the time was deemed inopportune to proceed definitely in the matter, the war situation absorbing the attention and energies of so many of those who would otherwise be interested in the idea of Graduate Menorah organization, and it was recommended that detailed consideration of the question be laid over another year. But a beginning of Graduate organization has already been made in Scranton, Pa., where a Graduate Menorah Society has been formed.

The Intercollegiate Menorah Association has been very cordially invited to join the Corda Fratres International Federation of Students, whose objects are: "To unite student movements and organizations throughout the world, to study student problems of every nature, and to promote among students closer international relations, mutual understandings and friendship; to encourage the study of international relations and problems; to stimulate a sympathetic appreciation of the character, problems and intellectual currents of other nations; to facilitate foreign study, and to increase its value and fruitfulness. The movement is neutral in all special religious, political and economic principles." (From the official declaration of principles.) The Corda Fratres at present comprises the following national organizations as its constituents: Consulates of Corda Fratres in Italy, Holland, Hungary and Greece; the Association Generale des Etudiants de Paris, and the Union Nationale des Associations des Etudiants de France; the Verband der Internationalen Studentenverein in Germany; the Liga de Estudiantes Americanos, including student organizations in the Argentine Republic, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and other countries in South America; and the Association of Cosmopolitan Clubs in North America. Thus, at present, the sole United States constituent is the Association of Cosmopolitan Clubs. It was recommended that the Intercollegiate Menorah Association accept the invitation to join Corda Fratres as a unit co-ordinate with the Association of Cosmopolitan Clubs, it being understood that the Menorah Association, while thus expressing its approval of the purposes and spirit of Corda Fratres and desiring to aid in its influence and to contribute the element of Jewish culture and ideals to its spiritual constituency, would not be qualified in any way as to its autonomy, purposes, and activities.

During the past year the Association continued its lecture system, and genuine thanks are due to all the speakers, members of the Menorah College of Lecturers, who have so generously given of their time and effort to the Menorah Societies.

Similarly, the Association has been enabled to continue sending Menorah Libraries to its constituent Societies. In most cases these books have been placed at the disposal of all the members of the university no less than of the members of the Menorah Societies, and the authorities have expressed their warmest gratitude for these contributions to their library facilities, even though the books remained the property of the Jewish Publication Society of America.

The presence of the books has done a great deal to stimulate actual reading and study on the part of Menorah members, and the work of the study groups has notably increased during the past year. This is a most gratifying evidence of the seriousness with which the students are taking hold of the Menorah idea. They are still hampered by lack of suitable syllabi, the preparation of which has been unfortunately delayed on account of the impaired health of the scholar who had undertaken to prepare them, but it was hoped that the syllabi would be made available before long.

The chief visible product of the administration the past year was the 180-page booklet entitled "The Menorah Movement," which contains a full and official exposition of the nature and purposes of the Menorah movement, a detailed history of the several Societies as well as of the Intercollegiate organization, including reports of the conferences and conventions, besides other material illustrating the attitude of the university authorities and the general community towards the Menorah movement. Its preparation took several months of labor on the part of the Officers of the Association (special credit being due to the Secretary, Mr. Isador Becker), assisted by the various Societies. An edition of five thousand, of which only a comparatively small number of copies remain, was distributed all over the country among the members of the Societies, other students, university authorities, alumni, and the interested public. It served to arouse both the academic and lay interest in the movement and to spread authoritative information about the nature and purposes of the Menorah Societies.

This publication also prepared the way for the issue of the permanent and periodical Journal of the Menorah Association, the desirability of which has been felt almost from the beginning of the Intercollegiate organization and reaffirmed at the last Convention. It had been hoped that the first number of The Menorah Journal would appear in time for this Convention, but the demands of an initial number that should in every way be worthy of the Menorah ideal of the Journal required a little more time, and the first issue could not appear before January, 1915.

The Menorah Journal, it was hoped, would not only spread interesting and authoritative information about the activities of the Menorah Societies and stimulate their work further in the future, but would itself be a potent means of promoting Jewish knowledge and literature. The Journal was meant to appeal not to Menorah members alone nor to students only, but to all within and without the universities who were interested in the literary treatment of Jewish life and aspiration. The Journal was extremely fortunate in having the counsel and literary co-operation of many leaders of Jewish thought and action of all parties (for list of Consulting Editors see Contents Page), the Journal itself, like the Menorah Societies, being non-partisan, a forum for the free expression of variant views.

Upon the success of the Journal will largely depend the future progress of the Menorah movement and its other literary enterprises contemplated, e. g., pamphlet essays and Menorah Classics, which for the present should be postponed, all energies having to be devoted to the Journal.

The gratifying encouragement given to the Journal enterprise by many men in the community is but a specific application of the co-operation of the Graduate Menorah Committee, headed by Justice Irving Lehman, which has continued during the past year to assist the Association generously and in the most admirable spirit, the committee reposing absolutely perfect confidence in the officers of the Association. To that co-operation and spirit of confidence the Association owes a great deal which it can repay only by continued effective devotion to the cause which is equally dear to the students and the graduates. It was deemed advisable that for the present the Graduate Menorah Committee should continue as an informal body.

A gratifying evidence of the mutual co-operation of the Menorah Societies in a material way during the past year was shown in the appropriation of fifty dollars by the Harvard Menorah Society for the Association.

All in all, the Association during the past year may be said to have advanced satisfactorily, though the Officers are conscious of the great opportunities which still remain before the organization. Indeed, the Menorah work is still in its beginnings. With the loyal co-operation of the students and the graduates, the Association looks forward confidently to a bright and big future.

Resolutions

After due consideration and discussion, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted:

Resolved, That the Intercollegiate Menorah Association, organized for the promotion in American Colleges and Universities of the study of Jewish history, culture and problems, and the advancement of Jewish ideals, affiliate with the "Corda Fratres" International Federation of Students. Note: This resolution was adopted upon the conditions (1) that the Intercollegiate Menorah Association be received into the International Federation of Students as a unit co-ordinate with the Association of Cosmopolitan Clubs, and (2) that the autonomy, purposes and activities of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association shall nowise be qualified by such affiliation.[H]

Resolved, That the fifty dollars contributed by the Harvard Menorah Society to the Intercollegiate Menorah Association be devoted to The Menorah Journal.

Resolved, That the Officers be constituted a committee to investigate the nature and work of student organizations analogous to the Menorah in other parts of the world and to submit a report thereon at the next Intercollegiate Menorah Convention. (Readopted from the last Convention.)

Resolved, That the Officers be constituted a committee to consider and draw up definite plans for "Menorah insignia and distinctions."

Third Session

The third session was a public meeting held at 8.15 P.M. in McMicken Auditorium, University of Cincinnati. (For report see [page 121].)

Fourth Session

Called to order on Thursday, December 24th, at 9.15 A.M., in the Faculty Room, McMicken Hall, by President Sharfman.

After due consideration and discussion the following resolutions were unanimously adopted:

Resolved, That the incoming Officers investigate the problem of the organization of Graduate Menorah Societies and prepare a report with recommendations for submission to the constituent Societies at the beginning of the next academic year(1915-16).

The Administrative Council, in session assembled, hereby expresses its hearty approval of the relationship that has arisen and has been maintained between the Intercollegiate Menorah Association, through its Officers, and a body of representative Jewish citizens of public spirit, known as a Graduate Advisory Committee, and gratefully records its deep appreciation of the wise counsel and generous assistance of this Graduate Advisory Committee in the prosecution of the Menorah purposes, and

Resolves, First, that these informal relations between the Intercollegiate Menorah Association and the Graduate Advisory Committee be permitted to continue as heretofore, and second, that the incoming Officers of the Association present plans looking to the permanent organization of this Graduate Advisory Committee, at the next mid-winter meeting of the Administrative Council. (Readopted from the last Convention.)

The Intercollegiate Menorah Convention extends its cordial greetings to Justice Irving Lehman and acknowledges with warm appreciation his welcome message and his generous assurance of willing co-operation. The Association is encouraged to carry forward with renewed vigor and inspiration its work of promoting the study of Jewish history and culture at American Colleges and Universities and of advancing Jewish ideals; to merit the confidence and support of the Graduate Advisory Committee.

Resolved, That each constituent Menorah Society should be bound to seek the advice and consent of the Officers of the Association before soliciting assistance from any source. (Readopted from the last Convention.)

Resolved, That the Administrative Council of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association, in annual meeting assembled, hereby enthusiastically expresses its entire confidence and trust in the work done by the Officers of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association and its appreciation of the able and efficient manner in which they conducted and supervised the work of the organization during the past year.

The oral reports of the several Menorah Societies, in amplification of their written reports, were presented and discussed.

Fifth Session

The fifth session was an informal luncheon held in the Banquet Hall of the Hotel Gibson, Cincinnati, at 1 P.M. (For a report of the addresses, see [page 125].)

Sixth Session

Immediately following the luncheon, at 4 P.M., the sixth session was convened in the private auditorium of the Hotel Gibson.

The following resolution was unanimously adopted:

Resolved, That the Officers of the Association take steps to provide Menorah Societies with syllabi of courses in Jewish history, Jewish literature, and contemporaneous Jewish problems. (Readopted from the last Convention.)

Upon proceeding to the choice of Officers of the Association for 1915, the following were elected: Chancellor, Henry Hurwitz of Boston, Mass. (re-elected by acclamation); President, I. Leo Sharfman of the University of Michigan (re-elected by acclamation); First Vice-President, Isadore Levin, of Harvard University; Second Vice-President, Milton D. Sapiro of the University of California; Third Vice-President, Abraham J. Feldman of the University of Cincinnati; Treasurer, N. Morais Lyon of the University of Cincinnati; and Secretary, Charles K. Feinberg of New York University.

After some discussion as to the advisability of deciding immediately upon the place of the next Annual Convention, it was

Resolved, That the place of meeting for the next Annual Convention be left to the judgment of the Officers of the Association.

After passing unanimously a Resolution thanking the University of Cincinnati, the Hebrew Union College, the Cincinnati Menorah Society, and the city of Cincinnati for the cordial reception accorded to the Convention, adjournment was had at 5.45 P.M.

N. M. Lyon, Secretary pro tem.

Note: In the course of the convention, several amendments to the Constitution of the Association were proposed and adopted. The Constitution as amended follows:

CONSTITUTION

Of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association

Article I: Name

The name of this organization shall be the Intercollegiate Menorah Association.

Article Ii: Object

The object of this Association shall be the promotion, in American colleges and universities, of the study of Jewish history, culture, and problems, and the advancement of Jewish ideals.

Article III: Membership

Sec. 1.—Menorah Societies in American colleges and universities, having the object defined in Article II, shall be eligible for membership in this Association, provided that membership in such Societies is open to all members of their respective colleges or universities so far as the efficient pursuit of the object may permit.

Sec. 2.—The Administrative Council (provided for in Article IV) shall have power to elect such honorary members as it may deem fit.

Sec. 3.—One constituent Society may be composed of members of two or more neighboring colleges or universities.

Sec. 4.—All eligible Societies which adopt this constitution by January 3, 1913, shall constitute the charter members of this Association.

Sec. 5.—Other Societies which are formed and eligible, or may be formed and become eligible, for membership in this Association, shall be admitted into this Association by the Administrative Council, and shall become members upon adopting this Constitution.

Sec. 6.—By a two-thirds vote of the Administrative Council, that body, in session, shall have power to deprive of membership any Society which may not be carrying out the object of the Association, or may be employing methods prejudicial to its spirit.

Article IV: Administration

Sec. 1.—The administration of this Association shall be in the hands of the Administrative Council.

Sec. 2.—Every constituent Society shall delegate one member to be its Representative in the Council who shall, at the time of his election, be directly connected with the college or the university as a student or as a member of the Faculty.

Sec. 3.—The Administrative Council shall elect annually at its mid-winter meeting the following Officers of the Association: Chancellor, First Vice-President, Second Vice-President, Third Vice-President, Treasurer, and Secretary.

(a) Officers who are not Representatives shall ex-officio be members of the Administrative Council.

Sec. 4.—The Administrative Council shall hold a meeting during the mid-winter recess, when and where it shall please a majority of the Council. Other meetings of the Council may be called upon the request of a majority of its members, and held when and where it shall please a majority. Notice of every meeting shall be sent to each member at least four weeks beforehand. A copy of the minutes of each meeting shall be duly sent by the Secretary to each constituent Society.

Sec. 5.—In case the Representative of a Society is unable to attend a meeting of the Council, his Society may send a duly accredited and instructed Deputy[I] who is not already the Representative or Deputy of another Society.

Sec. 6.—A quorum of the Administrative Council shall consist of the Representatives or Deputies from two-thirds of the constituent Societies.

(Note:—It is understood that a term of office of a Representative or Officer shall be one year, from one mid-winter meeting to the next).

Article V: Dues

Sec. 1.—The annual dues from each constituent Society shall be five dollars, which shall be paid to the Treasurer before the first meeting of the Administrative Council.

Sec. 2.—If a Society be admitted into membership after such date, its dues shall be paid upon admission.

Sec. 3.—Societies whose dues remain unpaid after the time set shall lose their vote in the Administrative Council until payment is made. Neglect to pay for two years may be a cause for dismissal from the Association by the Administrative Council.

Article VI: Date of Effect

This Constitution shall take effect January 2, 1913.

Article VII: Amendments

An amendment to this Constitution may be adopted by a two-thirds vote of the Administrative Council.

FOOTNOTES:

[G] See Prof. Sharfman's address, [page 124], and Dr. Kohler's remarks at the Convention luncheon, [page 128].

[H] The Association of Cosmopolitan Clubs, at its Convention at Ohio State University on Dec. 26-30, 1914, passed a resolution of greeting and welcome to the Intercollegiate Menorah Association.

[I] How, and to what extent, a Deputy shall be instructed, depends upon the will of the Society which accredits him. (This was the sense of the Constituent Convention.)

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