"I began to write English late in life," he said. "Israel Zangwill helped me to begin. He said he would correct what I wrote, but I wrote so much that Mr. Zangwill stopped reading it and told me to go ahead on my own hook. So I did. I have written infinitely in English, some of which has been published—Music of the Psalms; Education and the Talmud, which was issued by the United States government in the report of the commissioner of education; many articles on mysticism and other subjects in the magazine Ariel; The Mystery of the Golden Calf, The Music of the Ghetto, and many other works on the cabalistic mysticism. I have also written, Who Was Crucified? wherein I prove that it was not Jesus. If I kept on all day I could not tell you the names of all I have written. I have published many articles in the Jewish-American papers satirizing the rabbis, who consequently hate me. Much of my work, indeed, is satirical. The world needs cleaning up a little, particularly the rabbis. Put the reformed and orthodox rabbis together and some good might come of them. I am not afraid of these people, whom I call silk-chimney rabbis, because they wear tall hats instead of knowing the Talmud. It was my own invention—'silk-chimney rabbis.'"
Mr. Imber is evidently very fond of this phrase, for he repeated it many times. Indeed, he does not seem to be a very pious Jew. He himself admits it, for he said:
"I do not think they will say 'Kaddish' for my soul when I am dead. And yet I am not a skeptic, exactly. I have a principle, Zionism. And beyond Zionism I have another great interest. I have now perfected Zionism, so I am free to pass on to Mysticism, in which I am deeply at work. The mystics are all bluffers. I am a mystic, but my mysticism is simple and plain. My aim is to present a perfectly simple view of occultism. It is difficult to persuade Americans to become mystics. They care nothing for Hegel and Kant. Their philosophy I call Barnumism."
NAPTALI HERZ IMBER
Mr. Imber has largely given up writing Hebrew now, but lately he wrote a Hebrew poem comprising 200 closely printed pages. He did it, he said, to spite a man who said the poet had forgotten Hebrew because of his penchant for English.
Not long ago Mr. Imber wrote a Last Confession in Hebrew. He was very sick in a St. Louis hospital with blood poisoning, and thought he was going to die. They wanted him to confess his sins. So he did it, in Hebrew verse, which he translated to me, evidently on the spur of the moment, thus:
When my day will come
To wander in distress,
Call the priest to my room,