FOOTNOTE:
[G] In The Menorah Journal for October, 1915.
University Menorah Addresses
The following addresses indicating the attitude of University authorities towards the Menorah movement may be considered as supplementary to the University Addresses printed in Part II of The Menorah Movement (1914) and in the first number (January, 1915) of The Menorah Journal.
Professor Albert Léon Guérard of The Rice Institute
Before the Rice Institute Menorah Society, November 29, 1915
IT is my privilege to welcome the Menorah Society in the name of the non-Jewish element and of the Faculty of the Rice Institute. When I was requested to do so, I accepted at once and with pleasure. I am in hearty sympathy with the purpose of the Menorah Society. I am a teacher of French; but I should consider myself unworthy of my calling if, behind the words of a foreign language, I did not attempt to show the civilization of a people, their soul, their ideal. Now, what I am attempting to do for French, the Menorah plans to do for the traditions, the problems, the aspirations of the Jewish race. And although I believe that the people which gave to the world Saint Louis, Joan of Arc, Calvin, Descartes, Pascal, Rousseau, Pasteur, Victor Hugo has left its imperial imprint upon the whole of modern civilization, yet I cannot but be conscious of the prior and higher claims of that strange family of whose blood Moses, Jesus and Spinoza were born. Judaism and Hellenism, said Renan, are the twin miracles of human history. The artistic and philosophical primacy of the Greeks is not so striking as the religious primacy of the Hebrews. The worship of beauty is a less vital element than the undying quest for righteousness. The whole fabric of our culture rests on those Judeo-Hellenic foundations. And surely a university would be false to its name if it did not include among its courses the study of Jewish literature and Jewish history. The Rice Institute is young, and will not reach its full stature for many a decade; all branches of knowledge cannot be taken up at the same time. But the place which Judaic studies ought by right to have in the curriculum will be at least indicated and kept in mind by your Menorah Society.
I heartily welcome the Menorah because, open to Jews and Gentiles alike, it will help us break down the barrier of prejudices which still separates the two elements. I have seen with my own eyes the tragic effects of such prejudices: I was in Paris at the time of the Dreyfus case; I have seen how they warped the thought of scholarly men, like Houston Stewart Chamberlain; I have read with horror of the Russian pogroms. You, who have suffered for ages under the fierce contempt and hatred of fanatics, you who have at last reached this haven of democracy and justice, let not the lesson of past sufferings be lost; do not forget your brethren still in bondage; and your brethren are those who are persecuted, all the world over, even as you were persecuted. You ought to be foremost among those who labor for equality and freedom. We have a right to count upon you in the fight against all prejudices—prejudices of race and color, of class and country, of caste and religion. The emancipated Jew must be an emancipator.
I welcome the Menorah Society because, though devoted primarily to the tradition of your people, it does not look exclusively towards the past. Be rightly proud of the most unique and entrancing tradition in the history of the world. Cherish it, hold fast to it, as a title of nobility. The world has no respect for the man who does not respect himself in his forefathers. The call to American citizenship does not in the least imply the duty of forgetting that you are Jews: it is the best Jews that will make the best Americans. But do not be hypnotized by your past; be worthy of your ancestors by continuing their spirit rather than aping their habits. Think of the problems of to-day and to-morrow. Apply to human affairs your Biblical test of righteousness. Then you will find that, with a slightly different coloring perhaps, your aspirations are ours; our diverse evolutions, after centuries of estrangement and conflict, tend towards the same goal; and in the Menorah I see a sign of the coming harmony of sects and creeds, each remaining passionately attached to its own past, but all working in common towards the same future.