Books

The Charm of a subject justifies, nay invites, repetition. Last week, on another page, I wrote about Marvin Lowenthal the man; today I glance, with the superficiality, if neither the speed nor grace, of a dragon-fly, on the surface of Lowenthal, on the mind expressed in his delightful historical commentary on the Jews, “A World Passed By.” It is published by Harper’s.

I think perhaps I had better call it a reconstruction of, rather than a commentary on, the Jews. A reconstruction of their story, even from Biblical times, through the so-called Dark Ages and up to the present time, from the ruins extant, the objects salvaged and the books preserved, in towns on and off the beaten highway, in museum showcases, particularly in the Louvre and the Cluny, and in libraries, public and private. Mr. Lowenthal does not, of course, ignore general sources of historical information, legends and folk-lore. In fact, he polishes them up. His book is history and social history of a particularly graphic and realistic source, deriving from actual things seen and general knowledge assimilated during a lifetime of sustained, but not desperate, research. “A World Passed By” is an almost inspired Baedeker to Jewish civilization, a particularly difficult process because the fragments so often have been buried in the sands of Christian domination.

Mr. Lowenthal states his intention, as he states everything, so aptly that quotation seems as safe as it happens to be convenient. Therefore, I quote:

“This book is meant for both pleasure and use.

“As for its use, I planned it to be a comprehensive guide—the first in any language—to old and often little known seats of Jewish civilization in Europe and North Africa. And I have tried to communicate something of the delight I found in wandering among these neglected scenes which, though they lie on the beaten highways, offer a new world for travellers: I have hoped, as well, to serve lovers and creator of art and architecture who may be in search of Jewish forms and symbols.

“However, I soon discovered that in describing the art, monuments, and survivals of the Jew, the men who fashioned them and the legends they evoke, I was retelling Jewish history. So the pleasure of the book, if any, will lie in reading it and watching the epic of Israel unfold itself in the shards and stones left from the drift of forty centuries.”

The most amazing fact about this book is that although its basic material would tend to invite the consideration of either the racially sentimental or the archaeologically dull, the author has transformed it, in the light of his dry wit and clear intelligence, into a record which invites the perusal, and elicits the delight, of Gentile and Jew.. His phrase is not only witty but it summons a picture. Note: “The synagogues, as in Segovia, Cordova, or Lemberg, often stand within a stone’s throw (and many were the stones thrown) of a famed cathedral.” This is from the lengthy, but not tiring, introduction, in which Mr. Lowenthal in effect states his theme. Difficult as it is to choose, it is by far, for the very very busy reader, the richest and most rewarding chapter.

In the first chapter proper, Mr. Lowenthal retells the story of ancient Israel, as revealed in the fragments, of stone and texture, in the Louvre. There are perhaps too many references to show-cases sources, but he who reads as he runs may leave the parentheses to the scholar. After the second chapter—Tale-Telling Stones from Palestine—the narrative is unobstructed. Chapter Three begins to fill up with legend, of a miracle-making nature, and with history and anecdote which merely intensifies, for the Jew, the interest which even a non-Jewish reader can not help feeling. It is not until we have reached Chapter VII that we have passed through Judaic France. The history which Mr. Lowenthal’s stones reveal has, so far, more sunlight than shadow. The Dreyfus case is not the whole of France.