Stern College for Women - Kochaviah Yearbook (New York, NY)

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I remember the moment distinctly, continued the Monster. I was then swimming off Tasmania, Gibraltar, the south shore of Lake Erie and within sight of bathers on Wakiki Beach. The thought came to me suddenly that I was not obsolete even if I was old. I saw men reviving many customs, practices and beliefs from the past — all the way back from the centuries, from the jungle, from the primeval slime. Here was somebody trying to get back to Robespierre. Here was somebody else trying to get back to the Roman Empire. And on every hand were clubbings and shootings and hangings and decapitations. Children were being taught to laugh at notions like human brotherhood and human freedom, and instead were drilled in gas masks and hand grenades. So I looked around and said to myself, Why, I ' m not out of date, after all. I belong. I fit in With so many monstrous things about, why not a Sea Monster? ' And here I am. How about your plans for the Summer? asked the reporter. Oh, I suppose the usual thing, answered the Monster, turning to depart. Atlantic City, Cape of Good Hope, Copenhagen, Puget Sound, and Valparaiso. You newspapers ought to make the cable companies give you a flat rate on me. signs of spring by DVORA ABRAMSON Even along Fifth Avenue, I try to find the signs of spring. The calendar testifies that it is past the spring equinox, and the nights are shorter than the days, but spring manifests itself in odd ways in the city. The city knows that it is spring and it prepares itself accordingly. Everything is well ordered and according to rule. The department stores display their new stock of cottons and surround their dummies with green paper. The people also know that n is spring, and they dutifully wear cotton and remark, What fine weather we ' re having , or Spring is here at last! , and the last statement has much truth in it, for many days have passed since March 21. Spring lias chased the hot-chestnuts vendor from the corners of Fifth Avenue, and the people celebrate the changing of the seasons with a black raspberry ice cream cone. The ice cream vendor pro- claims spring with bells, and at almost ev iv other corner one may see- ice cream wrappings protruding from the tops ami sides of the trashcans, and the sound of the city is the voice of the ice cream bell. I passed a flower vendor on Fifth Avenue who offered daffodils, a dozen for sixty-five cents and forsythia, a bunch for fifty cents. I thought how beautiful they looked, and how odd it was that here they priced even beauty. This much beauty costs so much, and a different color costs more. But what is beauty? I know that one can find beauty in the arch of a bridge and in the various manifestations of man ' s brain, but oik loses sight of the true value ol things when he stares too long at tempered steel. It is easy to see G-d in daffodils, but only one who knows daffodils tan see G-d in the frame oi .1 skyscraper. I am glad that I know daffodils.

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the sea serpent ' s own story BY PEARL KIDANSKV From the Sea Serpent ' s eye a tear ran down his foreleg and he brushed it away gently with his right dorsal fin. So you do believe me? he asked. Certainly, said the newspaper man. Why shouldn ' t I? The monster shook his head. The incorrigible skepticism of the Human Race, he said. Think of what Christopher Columbus endured before he met Ferdinand and Isabella. Think of what they did to Robert Fulton until he succeeded in sailing his steamboat up the Hudson. Think of Galileo. When I first bobbed up the Scottish lake, it was the same old harsh, unbelieving world that I had met so many times before. The more conservative London newspapers referred to me editorially as extravagant nonsense. Try to think of even nonsense being extravagant in Scotland. You do believe in me, honestly? The reporter took out a cigarette and lit it in the blue flame issuing from his companion ' s nostrils. My dear Lusus Naturae, nowdays everything is credible. I have written millions of words about new scientific discoveries that would make the hair stand on end. I have written about infinite space curling up into a strictly finite rubber ball. I have described a universe a billion years old, composed of rocks five billion years old. I know all about time which moves backward. After all this, do you imagine it puzzles me to have you show up simultaneously in Scotland, Yucatan, the Shannon River and Bering Strait? Almost any day I expect you to be reported from the Volga River. To what do we owe your latest reappearance on so many fronts at once? The Sea Serpent stared straight ahead of him, her, or it. Do you know, he declared, I almost didn ' t show up at all. I had, to put it quite plainly, grown sick of the same weary round. To what purpose this recurrent parade in the public eye — in 1817, and in 1839, and in 1859, and in 1897, and so on? Like a tireless Business Cycle. Why sure, the reporter interrupted. There was a picture of you in the New York Times the other day as seen by a navigating officer in the Caribbean, all dips and curves. You looked exactly like the roller coaster at Coney Island. But pardon me, you were saying. I was saying that I grew tired of it all. People were fast ceasing to believe in me and I was beginning to lose credence in myself. After all, my time was spent. I belonged in the ooze of the Eocene, not in the full blaze of the Twentieth century civilization. And then all at once it came to me how foolish I was.

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I often think how wonderful it is that man cannot regulate the seasons, for in the city, everything except the vendor ' s cut flowers seems to be built to last forever, and when the nights grow shorter one may realize that forever is merely a man made term to express the will of G-d. Spring bares the city, for it is in spring that her weaknesses are revealed. Her chimneys offer warmth in winter, but in spring she offers what? What is spring in th e city? What happens when the winds start to play a different, lighter, more musical air — when the evenings are beautiful violin concertos, that quick- en the heartbeat and cause the heart to ache with an indefinable longing for an undefined thing. Spring is cotton dresses and the ice cream bell. Spring is the green in the shop windows and the fifty cents cut- flowers. The city puts on a good show to mark spring. Fifth Avenue knows how to act — tweed for fall, wool for winter — cotton for spring. It is indescribably sad in spring. I ache to see a tuft of timothy, growing haphazardly among last year ' s leaves, but if one crumples green crepe paper in a certain way, and spreads it carefully around, it resembles grass — well ordered and according to rule. The city tries so hard to make spring! trial and error ' chaim weizman A BOOK REVIEW BY SYLVIA HOITENBERG Jew or Gentile, Zionist or non-Zionist, any reader conscious of the present cosmic struggle to create a future will find Chaim Weizmann ' s Trial and Error worthwhile reading. This autobiography traces the steps by which an insignificant Russian-Jew became one of the world ' s greatest statesmen. In 1874 the well-to-do Weizmann family, living in a forlorn corner of White Russia, welcomed another child into their family. Chaim Weizmann, a bright and eager student, began his education at the age of four, in a squalid one room school, equipped with a teacher, numerous children, and the family goat. This the author affectionately calls his cheder , and to it attributes his sharp intellectual powers. He left his comfortable family at any early age to further his studies in a school of higher education, and began his extensive work in chemistry. After a brilliant college career, he became a teacher and at that point devoted himself most avidly to Zionism. The great Zionist reveals in his life story how he stepped from the ghetto to enlightening education, then on to be a brilliant chemist and teacher, and finally to be one of our greatest humanitarians as President of the State of Israel. The history of Zionism and the birth of the modern Jewish nation unfold before our eyes in Trial and Error. We read about the trials and tribulations and glories and exultation of the struggling nation, and our hearts yearn for the realization of its dreams. This book is a stirring chapter in the life of a race that passed through more vicissitudes than any other people. We live with Israel from its birth, through its struggle for existence, until its glorious realization and maturity. Without a doubt. Trial dial Error is the complete and excellent history of Zionism. Weizmann leaves nothing out in his account and provides thorough yet concise in- formation. The pages are crammed with the names, dates, and places that played an important part in the birth of the nation. Vivid glimpses of great persons and his- torical data comprise most of the book. In fact, the world ' s political greats such as Herzl, Zangwill and Rothschild take precedence over Weizmann himself, and out author is lost in the background of his autobiography. His modesty is outstanding and, speaking very little about his own great accomplishments, he lets his achievements speak for themselves. Perhaps the book would have been more interesting and pleasurable reading, had the author presented more details of his own illustrious career.