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No. 51. | Vienna, 21 December 1900. | Fourth Year

On the occasion of the turn of the year our esteemed subscribers are called upon to renew their subscriptions in good time. In order that no delay in delivery may ensue, attention is again drawn to the fact that the publishing house Tuschijah in Warsaw holds our representation for Russia, and further, that we have dissolved our connection with the publishing bookshop A. Zuckermann in Warsaw.

The Maccabean Spirit.

Mighty, almost superhuman figures — so the Maccabees show themselves to the backward-looking gaze. All the beauty and strength of men is united in them. Imperishable and without equal is their warrior fame: never did heroes know better how to fight, to conquer and to die than they. But greater still is their other fame: out of slack and feeble bondsmen they made men and masters. In flaming words they spoke of the greatness of the Jewish past. Thus they raised up a fallen people and led it back to its nationhood, back to itself. They shattered the idols of the Hellenes, they made fast the tables of the Law and drove the foreign shame out of the Jewish sanctuary. Their work was great as the work of Moses. With Ezra and Nehemiah they share the fame of having founded Jerusalem and given back to the "crown its ancient splendour." But their courage and defiance is without example. Without example too their faith in the people to which they belonged and for which they went joyfully to their death. Nothing could tear the trust in their people, the love of it, out of their hearts — not the hosts of the Syrians, not the deadly mockery, the boundless hatred and the grim hostility of their own fellow-countrymen. That lifts their figures high above the men of the people and the heroes of other nations.

*

And yet the Jews would forget their Maccabees. One legend, that of the little oil lamp, has been piously celebrated. But even in this legend it was only the miracle that was celebrated, not the beautiful symbol, that a weak little flame nourishes itself by its own power after all nourishment has been robbed from it. The Maccabees, however, they would forget. Were the Jews already so far and so distant from their nationhood that they thought no longer of their national heroes? Or had their Judaism become so sad and so wretched because they could no longer remember their heroes? "Who was Achilles? And who was Agamemnon? — When they knew the blind singer no more, — not Homer, but Hellas had long been dead…"

*

With Zionism the memory of the Maccabees has awakened. Nothing wonderful, when the late-born, who would renew the splendour of those days, give to the men of Modin every honour that the gratitude of grandsons can give. To the Zionists the Maccabees are a proud example: they see in them the greatest heroes and the truest sons of the Jewish people, the reawakeners of national unity and the most implacable enemies of every assimilation. So kindred do we feel ourselves to these men and to their time, that it will seem to us as though we were to-day taking up the weapons which their hands laid down yesterday.

*

The Maccabees would have been true heroes and men of the people even had human weaknesses joined themselves to their manly virtue. But even the greatest that is human was the possession of these Jewish leaders. So great and so strong was the love of their people, that they brought up the strength also to take up the fight against their own fellow-countrymen, even if against the bad and the unfaithful. For small and low souls such a fight is easy, easier than any other. The Jewish Hellenists, who leagued themselves with the Syrians against the Maccabees, felt nothing. But what a heavy fight have they to fight out with themselves who cling with every fibre of their heart to their people, to its smallest goods, who embrace all its members with infinite love. They see how the people is in danger, because the bad sons become more and more. But still they cannot resolve to rise up against these bad ones as fighters, as enemies, because in them they love the brothers. Yet when the distress then grows greater, and grows so great, that