WE'VE read in legends of the books of old
How deft Bezalel, wisest in his trade,
At the command of veilèd Moses made
The seven-branched candlestick of beaten gold—
The base, the shaft, the cups, the knops, the flowers,
Like almond blossoms—and the lamps were seven.

We know at least that on the templed rock
Of Zion hill, with earth's revolving hours
Under the changing centuries of heaven,
It stood upon the solemn altar block,
By every Gentile who had heard abhorred—
The holy light of Israel of the Lord;
Until that Titus and the legions came
And battered the walls with catapult and fire,
And bore the priests and candlestick away,
And, as memorial of fulfilled desire,
Bade carve upon the arch that bears his name
The stone procession ye may see today
Beyond the Forum on the Sacred Way,
Lifting the golden candlestick of fame.

The city fell, the temple was a heap;
And little children, who had else grown strong
And in their manhood venged the Roman wrong,
Strewed step and chamber, in eternal sleep.
But the great vision of the sevenfold flames
Outlasted the cups wherein at first it sprung.
The Greeks might teach the arts, the Romans law;
The heathen hordes might shout for bread and games;
Still Israel, exalted in the realms of awe,
Guarded the Light in many an alien air,
Along the borders of the midland sea
In hostile cities, spending praise and prayer
And pondering on the larger things to be—
Down through the ages when the Cross uprose
Among the northern Gentiles to oppose:
Then huddled in the ghettos, barred at night,
In lands of unknown trees and fiercer snows,
They watched forevermore the Light, the Light.

The main seas opened to the west. The Nations
Covered new continents with generations
That had their work to do, their thought to say;
And Israel's hosts from bloody towns afar
In the dominions of the ermined Czar,
Seared with the iron, scarred with many a stroke,
Crowded the hollow ships but yesterday
And came to us who are tomorrow's folk.
And the pure Light, however some might doubt
Who mocked their dirt and rags, had not gone out.

The holy Light of Israel hath unfurled
Its tongues of mystic flame around the world.
Empires and Kings and Parliaments have passed;
Rivers and mountain chains from age to age
Become new boundaries for man's politics.
The navies run new ensigns up the mast,
The temples try new creeds, new equipage;
The schools new sciences beyond the six.
And through the lands where many a song hath rung
The people speak no more their fathers' tongue.
Yet in the shifting energies of man
The Light of Israel remains her Light.
And gathered to a splendid caravan
From the four corners of the day and night,
The chosen people—so the prophets hold—
Shall yet return unto the homes of old
Under the hills of Judah. Be it so.
Only the stars and moon and sun can show
A permanence of light to hers akin.

What is that Light? Who is there that shall tell
The purport of the tribe of Israel?—
In the wild welter of races on that earth
Which spins in space where thousand other spin—
The casual offspring of the Cosmic Mirth
Perhaps—what is there any man can win,
Or any nation? Ultimates aside,
Men have their aims, and Israel her pride.
She stands among the rest, austere, aloof,
Still the peculiar people, armed in proof
Of Selfhood, whilst the others merge or die.
She stands among the rest and answers: "I,
Above ye all, must ever gauge success
By ideal types, and know the more and less
Of things as being in the end defined,
For this our human life by righteousness.
And if I base this in Eternal Mind—
Our fathers' God in victory or distress—
I cannot argue for my hardihood,
Save that the thought is in my flesh and blood,
And made me what I was in olden time,
And keeps me what I am today in every clime."

The Jews in the War

By Joseph Jacobs

JOSEPH JACOBS (born in New South Wales in 1854), noted author and editor, was one of England's well-known scholars and men of letters when he was called to America to become managing editor of the Jewish Encyclopedia. He has held the chair of English literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and is now editor of the American Hebrew. He is the author of many authoritative books, including "Jews of Angevin England," "Studies in Jewish Statistics," "Jewish Ideals," and "Literary Studies."

IT is of course difficult to conjecture what will be the ultimate effect of such a world-cataclysm as the present European war on the fate of the Jews of the world. The chief center of interest naturally lies in the eastern field of the war which happens to rage within the confines of Old Poland. This kingdom, founded by the Jagellons, brought together Roman Catholic Poland and Greek Catholic Lithuania and could not, therefore, apply in full rigor the mediaeval principle that only those could belong to the State who belonged to the State Church. Hence a certain amount of toleration of religious differences, which led to Poland forming the chief asylum of the Jews evicted from Western Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. As a consequence here lies the most crowded seat of Jewish population in the world. From it comes the vast majority of the third of a million Jews in the prime of life who are fighting for their native countries and often against their fellow-Jews. Probably three hundred thousand Jewish soldiers are under arms in this district. Besides the inevitable loss by death of many of these and the distress caused by the removal of so many others for an indefinite period from breadwinning for their families, there must be ineffable woe caused by the fact that this district is the scene of strenuous conflicts, which lead to the wholesale destruction of the Jewish homes in a literal sense. When one reflects that one out of every six of the inhabitants of Russian, Prussian, and Austrian Poland is a Jew, the extent of the misery thus caused may be imagined. One meets friends whose birth-place changes nationality from week to week, according as the different armies take possession. The Jewish inhabitants of Suwalki, for example, must be doubtful whether they are Germans or Russians, according as Uhlan or Cossack holds control of their city. But whichever wins, for the time being, the non-combatants suffer by the demolition of their houses, the requisition of their property, and above all by the dislocation of their trade. The mass of misery caused by the present war in this way to the Jews of Russian, Prussian, and Austrian Poland is incalculable.

Nor is this direct loss and misery compensated for by any hope of improved conditions after the war is concluded. One may dismiss at once the rumor that the Czar has promised his Jewish soldiers any alleviation of their lot, on account of their loyalty and bravery. Such rumors are always spread about when the Russian autocracy needs Jewish blood or money. Besides, we all know the value of the plighted word of the crowned head of the Russian Church; the emasculation of the Duma is sufficient evidence of this. And even if the Czar carries out his promise of giving autonomy to Poland, including any sections of Prussian and Austrian territory which he may acquire by the present war, the Jewish lot will not be ameliorated in the slightest. For, unfortunately, Poles have of recent years turned round on their Jewish fellow sufferers from Russian tyranny somewhat on the principle of the boy at school who "passes on" the blow which he has received from a bigger boy to one smaller yet.