Jewish Literature and Other Essays

Our last and strongest witness--one compelling the respectful attention of the severest court and the most incisive attorney general--is the Russian professor Berschadzky, the a...

"Queer people this! Downtrodden for thousands of years, weeping always, suffering always, abandoned always by its God, yet clinging to Him tenaciously, loyally, as no other unde...

For more than eight hundred years, Israel, entrenched on his own soil, bade defiance to every enemy. After the death of Solomon (978 B. C. E.), the kingdom was divided, its powe...

Their well kept houses are presided over by their women, diligent and modest. Polygamy is unknown. There are agriculturists and artisans, representatives of every handicraft: sm...

The most prominent of women writers in our era unquestionably is Grace Aguilar, in whom we must admire the rare union of broad culture and profound piety. She was born at Hackne...

"Truly, God's hand lies heavy on him Who has been created a man: Full many a trial he must patiently bear, And scorn and contumely of every kind. His life is like a field laid w...

Even in art, a sphere from which their rigorous laws might seem to have the effect of banishing them, they were not wholly inactive. They always numbered among themselves handic...

Was it the heedlessness of the compiler that associated the Jew with this merry company, in which he was as much out of place as a Gothic spire on a synagogue? Suesskind came by...

Teachers of the Law had but one answer to make to such attacks--a rigorous injunction against theatre-going. On this subject rabbis and Church Fathers were of one mind. The rabb...

Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Googl...

In three different spheres Maimonides' work produced important results. First in order stand his services to his fellow-believers. For them he compiled the great Codex, the firs...

As for Mendelssohn's friends who flocked to his hospitable home--their names are household words in the history of German literature. Nicolai and Lessing must be mentioned befor...

"They who walked our streets unnoticed, who meditated in their quiet studies, toiled in their workshops, cast up accounts in offices, sold wares in the shops, were suddenly tran...

To the Berlin period belongs his _Almansor_, a dramatic poem which has suffered the most contradictory criticism. In my opinion, it has usually been misunderstood. _Almansor_ is...

The two Midrashic systems emphasize respectively the rule of law and the sway of liberty: Halacha is law incarnate; Haggada, liberty regulated by law and bearing the impress of...

Of other women we are told whose learning and piety inspired respect, not only in Talmudic authorities, but, more than that, in their sisters in faith. Especially in the family...

These successors of the great intellects of the golden age of neo-Hebraic literature, thoroughly conversant with Arabic literature, busied themselves with rendering accessible t...

In a little room two flights up in a house next to the Nicolai churchyard lived one of the acquaintances made by Mendelssohn through Dr. Gumpertz, a young newspaper writer--Gott...

"Here lies a man, yet not a man, And if a man, conceived by angels, By human mother only born to light; Perhaps himself a spirit pure-- Not child by man and woman fostered-- Fro...

In the childhood of civilization, the digging of wells was regarded as beneficent work. Guide-posts, visible from afar, marked their position, and hymns were composed, and solem...

Among the noteworthy authors standing between the two periods and belonging to both, the most prominent is Nachmanides, a pious and learned Bible scholar. With logical force and...

The opinion is current that the Semitic race lacks the philosophic faculty. Yet it cannot be denied that Jews were the first to carry Greek philosophy to Europe, teaching and de...

Among the writers of that age, a peculiar style called "mosaic" gradually grew up, and eventually became characteristic of neo-Hebraic poetry and humor. For their subjects and t...

The entire work is one of great interest; it is written with moderation, and yet with a fine enthusiasm for the great race which is set before the reader's mind.--_Atlantic Mont...

Falashas, the, and the missionaries, 263, 267 and the Negus Theodore, 267 customs of, 266 described by Halevy, 264 history of, 263 intellectual eagerness of, 266, 268 Messianic...

Maimonides, Moses, philosopher, 34, 35, 84 and Aristotle, 156 and Averroes, 163-164 and Ibn Sina, 156 and modern philosophy, 164 and scholasticism, 85, 156, 164 as astronomer, 9...