showed extraordinary talent and insatiable thirst for knowledge. In her
twelfth year she wrote "Gustavus Vasa," an historical drama evincing
such unusual gifts that her parents were induced to devote themselves
exclusively to her education. It is a charming picture this, of a young,
gifted girl, under the loving care of cultured parents actuated by the
sole desire to imbue their daughter with their own taste for natural and
artistic beauty and their steadfast love for Judaism, and content to
lead a modest existence, away from the bustle and the opportunities of
the city, in order to be able to give themselves up wholly to the
education and companionship of their beloved, only daughter. Under the
influence of a wise friend, Grace Aguilar herself tells us, she
supplicated God to enable her to do something by which her people might
gain higher esteem with their Christian fellow-citizens.
God hearkened unto her prayer, for her efforts were crowned with
success. Her first work was the translation of a book from the Hebrew,
"Israel Defended." Next came "The Magic Wreath," a collection of poems,
and then her well-known works, "Home Influence," "The Spirit of
Judaism," her best production, "The Women of Israel,"
"The Jewish
Faith," and "History of the Jews in England"--a rich harvest for one
whose span of life was short. Her pen was dipped into the blood of her
veins and the sap of her nerves; the sacred fire of the prophets burnt
in her soul, and she was inspired by olden Jewish enthusiasm and
devotion to a trust.
So ardent a spirit could not long be imprisoned within so frail a body.
In the very prime of life, just thirty-one years old, Grace Aguilar
passed away, as though her beautiful soul were hastening to shake off
the mortal coil. She rests in German earth, in the Frankfort Jewish
cemetery. Her grave is marked with a simple stone, bearing an equally
simple epitaph:
"Give her of the fruit of her hands, And let her own works praise her in the gates."
Her death was deeply lamented far and wide. She was a golden link in the
chain of humanity--a bold, courageous, withal thoroughly womanly woman,
a God-inspired daughter of her race and faith. "We are persuaded," says
a non-Jewish friend of hers, "that had this young woman lived in the
times of frightful persecution, she would willingly have mounted the
stake for her faith, praying for her murderers with her last breath."
That the nobility of a solitary woman, leaping like a flame from heart
to heart, may inspire high-minded thoughts, and that Grace Aguilar's
life became a blessing for her people and for humanity, is illustrated
by the following testimonial signed by several hundred Jewish women,
presented to her when she was about to leave England:
"Dearest Sister--Our admiration of your talents, our veneration for your
character, our gratitude for the eminent services your writings render
our sex, our people, our faith, in which the sacred cause of true
religion is embodied: all these motives combine to induce us to intrude
on your presence, in order to give utterance to sentiments which we are
happy to feel and delighted to express. Until you arose, it has, in
modern times, never been the case that a Woman in Israel should stand
forth the public advocate of the faith of Israel; that with the depth
and purity of feelings which is the treasure of woman, and with the
strength of mind and extensive knowledge that form the pride of man, she
should call on her own to cherish, on others to respect, the truth as it
is in Israel.
"You, dearest Sister, have done this, and more. You have taught us to
know and appreciate our dignity; to feel and to prove that no female
character can be ... more pure than that of the Jewish maiden, none more
pious than that of the woman in Israel. You have vindicated our social
and spiritual equality with our brethren in the faith: you have, by your
own excellent example, triumphantly refuted the aspersion, that the
Jewish religion leaves unmoved the heart of the Jewish woman. Your
writings place within our reach those higher motives, those holier
consolations, which flow from the spirituality of our religion, which
urge the soul to commune with its Maker and direct it to His grace and
His mercy as the best guide and protector here and hereafter...."
Her example fell like seed upon fertile soil, for Abigail Lindo, Marian
Hartog, Annette Salomon, and especially Anna Maria Goldsmid, a writer of
merit, daughter of the well-known Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, may be
considered her disciples, the fruit of her sowing.
The Italian poetess, Rachel Morpurgo, a worthy successor of Deborah
Ascarelli and Sara Copia Sullam, was contemporaneous with Grace Aguilar,
though her senior by twenty-six years. Our interest in her is heightened
by her use of the Hebrew language, which she handled with such
consummate skill that her writings easily take rank with the best of
neo-Hebraic literature. A niece of the famous scholar S.
D. Luzzatto,
she was born at Triest, April 8, 1790. Until the age of twelve she
studied the Bible, then she read Bechaï's "Duties of the Heart" and
Rashi's commentary, and from her fourteenth to her sixteenth year she
devoted herself to the Talmud and the Zohar--a remarkable course of
study, pursued, too, in despite of adverse circumstances. At the same
time she was taught the turner's art by Luzzatto's father, and later she
learned tailoring. One of her poems having been published without her
knowledge, she gives vent to her regret in a sonnet:
"My soul surcharged with grief now loud complains, And fears upon my spirit heavily weigh.
'Thy poem we have heard,' the people say,
'Who like to thee can sing melodious strains?'
'They're naught but sparks,' outspeaks my soul in chains,
'Struck from my life by torture every day.
But now all perfume's fled--no more my lay Shall rise; for, fear of shame my song restrains.'
A woman's fancies lightly roam, and weave Themselves into a fairy web. Should I Refrain? Ah! soon enough this pleasure, too, Will flee! Verily I cannot conceive
Why I'm extolled. For woman 'tis to ply The spinning wheel--then to herself she's true."
This painful self-consciousness, coupled with the oppression of material
cares, forms the sad refrain of Rachel Morpurgo's writings. She is a
true poetess: the woes of humanity are reflected in her own sorrows, to
which she gave utterance in soulful tones. She, too, became an exemplar
for a number of young women. A Pole, Yenta Wohllerner, like Rachel
Morpurgo, had to propitiate churlish circumstances before she could
publish the gifts of her muse, and Miriam Mosessohn, Bertha Rabbinowicz,
and others, emulated her masterly handling of the Hebrew language.
The opening of the new era was marked by the appearance of a triad of
Jewesses--Grace Aguilar in England, Rachel Morpurgo in Italy, and
Henriette Ottenheimer in Germany. A native of the blessed land of
Suabia, Henriette Ottenheimer was consecrated to poetry by intercourse
with two masters of song--Uhland and Rückert. Her poems, fragrant
blossoms plucked on Suabian fields, for the most part are no more than
sweet womanly lyrics, growing strong with the force of enthusiasm only
when she dwells upon her people's sacred mission and the heroes of Bible
days.
Women like these renew the olden fame of the Jewess, and add
achievements to her brilliant record. As for their successors and
imitators, our contemporaries, whose literary productions are before us,
on them we may not yet pass judgment; their work is still on probation.
One striking circumstance in connection with their activity should be
pointed out, because it goes to prove the soundness of judgment, the
penetration, and expansiveness characteristic of Jews.
While the
movement for woman's complete emancipation has counted not a single
Jewess among its promoters, its more legitimate successor, the movement
to establish woman's right and ability to earn a livelihood in any
branch of human endeavor--a right and ability denied only by prejudice,
or stupidity--was headed and zealously supported by Jewesses, an
assertion which can readily be proved by such names as Lina Morgenstern,
known to the public also as an advocate of moderate religious reforms,
Jenny Hirsch, Henriette Goldschmidt, and a number of writers on subjects
of general and Jewish interest, such as Rachel Meyer, Elise Levi
(Henle), Ulla Frank-Wolff, Johanna Goldschmidt, Caroline Deutsch, in
Germany; Rebekah Eugenie Foa, Julianna and Pauline Bloch, in France;
Estelle and Maria Hertzveld, in Holland, and Emma Lazarus, in America.
One other name should be recorded. Fanny Neuda, the writer of "Hours of
Devotion," and a number of juvenile stories, has a double claim upon our
recognition, inasmuch as she is an authoress of the Jewish race who has
addressed her writings exclusively to Jewish women.
We have followed Jewish women from the days of their first flight into
the realm of song through a period of two thousand years up to modern
times, when our record would seem to come to a natural conclusion. But I
deem it proper to bring to your attention a set of circumstances which
would be called phenomenal, were it not, as we all know, that the
greatest of all wonders is that true wonders are so common.
It is a well-known fact, spread by literary journals, that the
Rothschild family, conspicuous for financial ability, has produced a
goodly number of authoresses. But it is less well known, and much more
noteworthy, that many of the excellent women of this family have devoted
their literary gifts and attainments to the service of Judaism. The
palaces of the Rothschilds, the richest family in the world, harbor many
a warm heart, whose pulsations are quickened by the thought of Israel's
history and poetic heritage. Wealth has not abated a jot of their
enthusiasm and loyal love for the faith. The first of the house of
Rothschild to make a name for herself as an authoress was Lady
Charlotte Rothschild, in London, one of the noblest women of our time,
who, standing in the glare of prosperity, did not disdain to take up the
cudgels in defense of her people, to go Sabbath after Sabbath to her
poor, unfortunate sisters in faith, and expound to them, in the school
established by her generosity, the nature and duties of a moral,
religious life, in lectures pervaded by the spirit of truth and faith.
Two volumes of these addresses have been published in German and English
(1864 and 1869), and every page gives evidence of rare piety,
considerable scholarship, thorough knowledge of the Bible, and a high
degree of culture. Equal enthusiasm for Judaism pervades the two volumes
of "Thoughts Suggested by Bible Texts" (1859), by Baroness Louise,
another of the English Rothschilds.
Three young women of this house, in which wealth is not hostile to
idealism, have distinguished themselves as writers, foremost among them
Clementine Rothschild, a gentle, sweet maiden, claimed by death before
life with its storms could rob her of the pure ideals of youth. She died
in her twentieth year, and her legacy to her family and her faith is
contained in "Letters to a Christian Friend on the Fundamental Truths of
Judaism," abundantly worthy of the perusal of all women, regardless of
creed. This young woman displayed more courage, more enthusiasm, more
wit, to be sure also more precise knowledge of Judaism, than thousands
of men of our time, young and old, who fancy grandiloquent periods
sufficient to solve the great religious problems perplexing mankind.
Finally, mention must be made of Constance and Anna de Rothschild, whose
two volume "History and Literature of the Israelites"
(1872) created a
veritable sensation, and awakened the literary world to the fact that
the Rothschild family is distinguished not only for wealth, but also for
the talent and religious zeal of its authoresses.
I have ventured to group these women of the Rothschild family together
as a conclusion to the history of Jewish women in literature, because I
take their work to be an earnest of future accomplishment. Such examples
cannot fail to kindle the spark of enthusiasm slumbering in the hearts
of Jewish women, and the sacred flame of religious zeal, tended once
more by women, will leap from rank to rank in the Jewish army. As it is,
a half-century has brought about a remarkable change in feeling towards
Judaism. Fifty years ago the following lines by Caroline Deutsch, one of
the above-mentioned modern German writers, could not have awakened the
same responsive chord as now:
"Little cruet in the Temple
That didst feed the sacrificial flame, What a true expressive symbol
Art thou of my race, of Israel's fame!
Thou for days the oil didst furnish
To illume the Temple won from foe--
So for centuries in my people
Spirit of resistance ne'er burnt low.
It was cast from home and country,
Gloom and sorrow were its daily lot; Yet the torch of faith gleamed steady, Courage, like thy oil, forsook it not.
Mocks and jeers were all its portion, Death assailed it in ten thousand forms--
Yet this people never faltered,
Hope, its beacon, led it through all storms.
Poorer than dumb, driven cattle,
It went forth enslaved from its estate, All its footsore wand'rings lighted
By its consciousness of worth innate.
Luckless fortunes could not bend it; Unjust laws increased its wondrous faith; From its heart exhaustless streaming, Freedom's light shone on its thorny path.
Oil that burnt in olden Temple,
Eight days only didst thou give forth light!
Oil of faith sustained this people
Through the centuries of darkest night!"
We can afford to look forward to the future of Judaism serenely. The
signs of the times seem propitious to him whose eye is clear to read
them, whose heart not too embittered to understand their message aright.
Our rough and tumble time, delighting in negation and destruction,
crushing underfoot the tender blossoms of poetry and faith, living up to
its quasi motto, "What will not die of itself, must be put to death,"
will suddenly come to a stop in its mad career of annihilation. That
will mark the dawn of a new era, the first stirrings of a new
spring-tide for storm-driven Israel. On the ruins will rise the Jewish
home, based on Israel's world-saving conception of family life, which,
having enlightened the nations of the earth, will return to the source
whence it first issued. Built on this foundation, and resting on the
pillars of modern culture, Jewish spirit, and true morality, the Jewish
home will once more invite the nations to exclaim: "How beautiful are
thy tents, O Jacob, thy dwellings, O Israel!"
May the soft starlight of woman's high ideals continue to gleam on the
thorny path of the thinker Israel; may they never depart from Israel,
those God-kissed women that draw inspiration at the sacred fount of
poesy, and are consecrated by its limpid waters to give praise and
thanksgiving to Him that reigns on high; may the poet's words ever
remain applicable to the matrons and maidens of Israel:[35]
"Pure woman stands in life's turmoil A rose in leafy bower;
Her aspirations and her toil
Are tinted like a flower.
Her thoughts are pious, kind, and true, In evil have no part;
A glimpse of empyrean blue
Is seen within her heart."
MOSES MAIMONIDES
"Who is Maimonides? For my part, I confess that I have merely heard the
name." This naïve admission was not long since made by a well-known
French writer in discussing the subject of a prize-essay, "Upon the
Philosophy of Maimonides," announced by the _académie universitaire_ of
Paris. What short memories the French have for the names of foreign
scholars! When the proposed subject was submitted to the French minister
of instruction, he probably asked himself the same question; but he was
not at a loss for an answer; he simply substituted Spinoza for
Maimonides. To be sure, Spinoza's philosophy is somewhat better known
than that of Maimonides. But why should a minister of instruction take
that into consideration? The minister and the author--
both presumably
over twenty-five years of age--might have heard this very question
propounded and answered some years before. They might have known that
their colleague Victor Cousin, to save Descartes from the disgrace of
having stood sponsor to Spinozism, had established a far-fetched
connection between the Dutch philosopher and the Spanish, pronouncing
Spinoza the devoted disciple of Maimonides. Perhaps they might have been
expected to know, too, that Solomon Munk, through his French
translation of Maimonides' last work, had made it possible for modern
thinkers to approach the Jewish philosopher, and that soon after this
translation was published, E. Saisset had written an article upon Jewish
philosophy in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, in which he gave a popular
and detailed exposition of Maimonides' religious views.
All this they
did not know, and, had they known it, they surely would not have been so
candid as the German thinker, Heinrich Ritter, who, in his "History of
Christian Philosophy," frankly admits: "My impression was that mediæval
philosophy was not indebted to Jewish metaphysicians for any original
line of thought, but M. Munk's discovery convinced me of my
mistake."[36]
Who was Maimonides? The question is certainly more justifiable upon
German than upon French soil. In France, attention has been invited to
his works, while in Germany, save in the circle of the learned, he is
almost unknown. Even among Jews, who call him "Rambam,"
he is celebrated
rather than known. It seems, then, that it may not be unprofitable to
present an outline of the life and works of this philosopher of the
middle ages, whom scholars have sought to connect with Spinoza, with
Leibnitz, and even with Kant.[37]
While readers in general possess but little information about Maimonides
himself, the period in which he lived, and which derives much of its
brilliancy and importance from him, is well known, and has come to be a
favorite subject with modern writers. That period was a very dreamland
of culture. Under enlightened caliphs, the Arabs in Spain developed a
civilization which, during the whole of the middle ages up to the
Renaissance, exercised pregnant influence upon every department of human
knowledge. A dreamland, in truth, it appears to be, when we reflect that
the descendants of a highly cultured people, the teachers of Europe in
many sciences, are now wandering in African wilds, nomads, who know of
the glories of their past only through a confused legend, holding out to
them the extravagant hope that the banner of the Prophet may again wave
from the cathedral of Granada. Yet this Spanish-Arabic period bequeathed
to us such magnificent tokens of architectural skill, of scientific
research, and of philosophic thought, that far from regarding it as
fancy's dream, we know it to be one of the corner-stones of
civilization.
Prominent among the great men of this period was the Jew Moses ben
Maimon, or as he was called in Arabic, Abu Amran Musa ibn Maimûn Obaid
Allah (1135-1204). It may be said that he represented the full measure
of the scientific attainments of the age at the close of which he
stood--an age whose culture comprised the whole circle of sciences then
known, and whose conscious goal was the reconciliation of religion and
philosophy. The sturdier the growth of the spirit of inquiry, the more
ardent became the longing to reach this goal, the keener became the
perception of the problems of life and faith. Arabic and Jewish thinkers
zealously sought the path leading to serenity. Though they never entered
upon it, their tentative efforts naturally prepared the way for a great
comprehensive intellect. Only a genius, master of all the sciences,
combining soundness of judgment and clearness of insight with great
mental vigor and depth, can succeed in reconciling the divergent
principles of theology and speculation, if such reconciliation be within
the range of the possible. At Cordova, in 1135, when the sun of Arabic
culture reached its zenith, was born Maimonides, the man gifted with
this all-embracing mind.
Many incidents in his life, not less interesting than his philosophic
development, have come down to us. His father was his first teacher. To
escape the persecutions of the Almohades, Maimonides, then thirteen
years old, removed to Fez with his family. There religious persecution
forced Jews to abjure their faith, and the family of Maimon, like many
others, had to comply, outwardly at least, with the requirements of
Islam. At Fez Maimonides was on intimate terms with physicians and
philosophers. At the same time, both in personal intercourse with them
and in his writings, he exhorted his pseudo-Mohammedan brethren to
remain true to Judaism. This would have cost him his life, had he not
been rescued by the kindly offices of Mohammedan theologians. The
feeling of insecurity induced his family to leave Fez and join the
Jewish community in Palestine. "They embarked at dead of night. On the
sixth day of their voyage on the Mediterranean, a frightful storm arose;
mountainous waves tossed the frail ship about like a ball; shipwreck
seemed imminent. The pious family besought God's protection. Maimonides
vowed that if he were rescued from threatening death, he would, as a
thank-offering for himself and his family, spend two days in fasting and
distributing alms, and devote another day to solitary communion with
God. The storm abated, and after a month's voyage, the vessel ran into
the harbor of Accho."[38] The travellers met with a warm welcome, but
they tarried only a brief while, and finally settled permanently in
Egypt. There, too, disasters befell Maimonides, who found solace only in
his implicit reliance on God and his enthusiastic devotion to learning.
It was then that Maimonides became the religious guide of his brethren.
At the same time he attained to eminence in his medical practice, and
devoted himself zealously to the study of philosophy and the natural
sciences. Yet he did not escape calumny, and until 1185
fortune refused
to smile upon him. In that year a son, afterwards the joy and pride of
his heart, was born to him. Then he was appointed physician at the court
of Saladin, and so great was his reputation that Richard Coeur de Lion
wished to make him his physician in ordinary, but Maimonides refused the
offer. Despite the fact that his works raised many enemies against him,
his influence grew in the congregations of his town and province. From
all sides questions were addressed to him, and when religious points
were under debate, his opinion usually decided the issue. At his death
at the age of seventy great mourning prevailed in Israel. His mortal
remains were moved to Tiberias, and a legend reports that Bedouins
attacked the funeral train. Finding it impossible to move the coffin
from the spot, they joined the Jews, and followed the great man