Yeshiva University - Masmid Yearbook (New York, NY)

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28 M A S M I D C ' ompliments of Harry Fischel Compliments of Louis Gold

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M A S M I D 27 cauce it was least understood. One of the bitterest critics of the Talmud, though, Hans Folz, shows in his poetry what for a non- Jew was an astounding knowledge of the Talmud; but this did not keep him from slandering it. Reuchlin, in his defensi of the Talmud, said that it was not made so that any ig.ioramus who did not understand the Talmud might criticise it a id demand its con- fiscation. In all this storm of contempt for Mebrew literature the poets did not lose sight of the Jew as a character with possit ilities of stimu- lating their hate upon him. Toward tiiis end ihey sought to entertain the public by por.raymg him in ludicrous situations or by distorting his life. The poets in this field were many. In various poems we find Jews portrayed as suckling from a pig, but tlie main efforts of the poets were directed toward picturing the Jewish Messiah as being born a girl. A young Jewess is led into illicit rela- tions with an adventurer or a student in the belief that the latter is hlijah, and that she is to be the mother of the Me::siah. Invariably the offspring is a girl, and the Jewess accepts baptism. Innumerable poetS handled this theme, including Folz, Abraham a S. Clara, Grimmelshausen and Kirchoff. The height of such vulgar means to gain the end of the poets is found in the poem Von einer schwangeren Judin by Joliann Fischart. In the beginning the poem prophesies that on a certain date a Jewe:s in limzwangen will give birJi to two pigs: and, sure enough, on that exact date a Jewess in that town gives birth to two sows which die immediately after birth. It can be seen from this how low the poets stooped in their art to villify the Jews. In general if we examine the literature of this time we see that there is often an endea- vor to attack the inner life, customs and thoughts of the Jews. Some poets like Folz and Grimmelshausen show a remarkable knowledge of Hebrew literature. The poets ceize upon anything that plays any part in the life of the Jew as material for mockery. The Jews are mocked alike for their reli- gibujness and for accepting baptism; and al- thoilgh some poets like Brant and Pauli give the Jtws lukewarm praise for the strict ob- servartce of the Jewish holidays they are only voices crying in a wilderness. In the shifting of the attack from the Jewish religion to the Jew himself the latter assumes the form of a sorcerer and to a very much greater extent that of a usurer — so much so in fact that the terms usurer and Jew came to be synonymous. His form and character are familiar — miserly, brutal, self- ish, demanding and sometimes getting his pound of flesh. Usually the forces of justice and humanity triumph and the usurer receives his just deserts. Some poets like Ayrer, in his Halbnarrischen Wucherer and Gry- phias, in his Horribiliscribrifax , endeavor to vindicate the Jewish usurer because the lat- ter was forced into this lowly profession against his will; and once, even, in Ayrer ' s morality play Vom falschen Notarius mil seinem unwahrhaften Beicht , the usurer be- comes a benefactor — but only rarely does the usurer receive the grace of his clientele. Besides the works of known authorship there existed in Germany at this period a myr- iad of folk-tales and folk-songs that are marked by fierce anti-Semitism. It is in this lore that we find the dread blood libel , the accusation that the Jews used Christian children ' s blood in the Passover ceremonies; and also the accusation that the Jews are the defilers of the Christian sacraments. The Christians out of their hatred of the Jews cought justification for persecuting the latter physically as well as spiritually and found in thece songs and tales of child murder, or water and food poisonings and other trumped up malefactions all the justification they needed for breaking out in riots to mas- sacre the Jews. Only rarely do the more famous poets deal with these accusations. But whatever the source the result was real and destructive. The time was not distant, however, when the position of the German Jew would ex- perience a material betterment. In the mid- dle of the 18th century, when the Haska- lah movement unearthed the culture of the world to the Jew, Lessing wrote his one-act play Die Juden and five years later be- came acquainted with the man who was to become his best friend and the model for Nathan in Nathan der Weise — Moses Men- delsohn. Politically also the Jews achieved greater prominence and gradually the world realized the great injustice that had been done to the Jews. And with understanding came tolerance and respect.

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M A SMID 29 Compliments of CENTURY WOOLEN CORPORATION JACOB D. COHEN, President 106-112 West 38th Street New York City Compliments of MR. « MRS. JACK BUTTERMAN 800 East Fourth St. Brooklyn, N. Y. Compliments of MENDEL GOTTESMAN