Tributes to Max Nordau, the Zionist prophet, rather than the leader, were paid at the memorial meeting last night at Town Hall, under the auspices of the Zionist Organization of America, Prof. Richard Gottheil of Columbia University presiding. That Nordau “was great because he mobilized the conscience of his people” was the keynote of Prof. Cottheil’s remarks who declared his personal loss was too great for him to speak at great length.
“The intellectual honesty and spiritual courage of Nordau which made him perhaps the most frank and fortright teacher of his generation” was stressed by Dr. Stephen S. Wise, who declared Nordau would have scorned “contemptuously, withal justly, the act of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations which refused to pass upon a resolution calling for nothing more than cooperation in the physical upbuilding of Palestine, on the ground that such resolution involved a controversial question.”
Morris Rothenberg spoke of Nordau’s insight into the Jewish problem, saying “his analysis of the symptons which the assimilationists of his day were exhibiting resembled the diagnosis of a learned physician reviewing the ailments of a patient.”
“The truth of Zionism Max Nordau greatly expressed in his Congress addresses remains truth to this day, and everlastingly,” Louis Lipsky, chairman of the Executive Committee of the Zionist Organization, declared.
Dr. Harry Friedsnwald, of Baltimore, sent a letter expressing his deep sorrow “at the loss of the of the scholar, historian and philosopher, and of one whose devotion to Zionism was unbounded.”
It remained for Dr. Schmarya Levin to pay final honor to the memory of Max Nordau in a speech expounding the philosophy of nationalism of the departed leader.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
