Plans for the establishment of a Menorah Foundation, the purpose of which would be “to foster research and exact knowledge and humanistic interpretation of the whole field of Jewish experience and expression, past and present.” were announced at the close of the three-day conference of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association held in New York City.
The plans were formulated at a business session of the Menorah Association held Monday morning. Henry Hurwitz, chancellor of the Intercollegiate society announced that a gift of $25,000 by an anonymous contributor was promised for the foundation, provided additional sums will be raised for this purpose.
According to the plan, the Meorah Foundation would “provide trained men and women to devote themselves professionally to the field of Jewish research” and “to nurture Jewish creative talent in thought, letters and the arts.” In the last seventy-five years. covering almost the entire period of Jewish emancipation in Europe and America, only three books on Jewish history were written, Mr. Hurwitz asserted.
The conference came to a close with a dinner held Monday night at the Commodore Hotel. Carl Van Doren, Philip Guedalla, Dr. Jonah B. Wise, S. Baruch and Dr. Chaim Weizmann were the speakers. Mr. Hurwitz acted as toastmaster.
Carl Van Doren, author, lecturer and critic, said that he had never been able to find any difference in the frame of mind of Jewish and other peoples. He said that the only difference in the history of Jews, Scottish, Irish and other settlers in the United States was in the viewpoints of the Irish, Scottish or Jewish historian writing of the first settlers.
Adotph S. Oko (S. Baruch), librarian of the Hebrew Union College, read a paper on Spinoza on the occasion of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the philosopher. To commemorate this anniversary The Societas Spinozana has been formed.
“And I am happy,” said Mr. Guedalla, “to make my American debut in a city where I don’t feel, as I have some times elsewhere, that I am in a minority.”
Mr. Guedalla, referring to men of letters, said he did not believe a Jewish writer should undertake to write a Jewish book any more than he believed that a Jewish scientist should set out to discover “a Jewish fact.”
Rabbi Jonah B. Wise, in his address ## the Jews a people of Job.
Dr. Chaim Weizmann subjected the Menorah movement to a severe analysis, criticizing it mainly for its vague program. The Menorah movement in the United States speaks of the necessity of a Jewish adjustment to the culture and civilization of America. It takes it for granted that this adjustment has already taken place in European countries and the task which the Jewish academic youth is facing in the United States is that of adjustment. This adjustment, when analyzed would seem to strive at a double task. First, to stand firmly on the ground of the local cultural conditions, while at the same time assuring the distinctive contribution of the Jews as a group to the cultural values of the great American system. If this is the situation, the Menorah desires to create a new type of Jew on the basis of research, which has not been made yet.
“This is a task which is, I am afraid much more difficult than the upbuilding of Palestine,” he declared.
Dr. Weizmann then entered into a scientific discourse of the role and relation of various elements in the physical processes, drawing his comparisons mainly from the field of chemistry. “The Jewish people are being referred to by our non-Jewish friends as the salt of the earth, but the role of salt is, as is well known, to dissolve into our food and flavor somebody’s soup. Should the salt be found to be too great in quantity, the soup would be unpalatable.” he said.
“The only undoubted fact which results from the study of Jewish history in the past two thousand years shows that all attempts of the Jewish people at adjustment have been nothing but an attempt at approximation. But approximation is not complete adjustment. In this respect we have failed. Our duty is to attempt at approximation as much as possible and leave the rest for progress. We must not overlook the fact that under all conditions we are and remain a minority which is strong enough to remain a minority.”
Dr. Weizmann then spoke of the Hebrew University as an attempt to create such conditions where Jewish men of science can carry on their work under normal conditions without the feeling that they are a minority.” The only task of adjustment which would remain for these men of science would be to approximate the general culture of the world.
“Those Jewish intellectuals of the Menorah who speak of the necessity of Jewish culture and disavow affiliation with Zionism give one the impression of Zionists who are afraid of seasickness,” he declared.
At the Sunday session an interesting debate took place on the subject “Rabbis and Intellectuals.”
Professor Israel S. Wechsler of the College of Physicians and Surgeous, Columbia University, stated the case for the “intellectuals.” He asserted that “every honest rabbi in his privacy bewails the necessity for doing and saying things in contradiction to his own belief”– and that the average young “intellectual” refused to follow his religion because of his restlessness, and his hatred of ritual, ceremony and sham.
“I confess a great deal of trepidation,” said Dr. Wechsler, “as to the survival of Judaism in American civilization. The rabbi must cease to be what he is now–in many cases a man who professes Judaism, preaches Christianity and practices neither. He must become again what he was in ancient Israel–the wise man, the scholar, the fount of all knowledge and understanding. Today we can destroy the theological seminaries, but that will not destroy Judaism. What we must do is to build new character and learning among our rabbis so that they will themeselves become intellectuals.”
Dr. James G. Heller, a Reform rabbi of Cincinnati, answered Dr. Wechsler in a spirited speech, in which he expressed almost thorough disagreement with his views.
“What I see wrong with the “intellectuals’ I have known is that they are ‘half-baked’ and not philosophically minded,” he declared. “They do not carry their conclusions through. The great dilemma of the Jewish ‘intellectual’ is disunion, a schism in his mind. When he leaves Judaism he is a man without a country. He is trying to express a heritage that is not his own.”
The Orthodox Jewish side was represented by the Rev. Leo Jung, who insisted that a belief in the revelations on Mount Sinai was an essential part of Judaism.
Maurice Samuel participated in the discusion.
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.
