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WALTER HART BLUMENTHAL
Associate Editor of / he American HebrtW
ON OLD AMERICA
By ALLEN H
Professor of Old Testame
Did any part of the ancient Israelite
people ever reach America? That the
ory has been discussed to rags, begin
ning with early Spanish explorers and
ecclesiasts in America. The theory of
“Lost Tribes” of Israel among the
American Indians was long ago obso
lete among competent Americanists.
But, seeing that there is no actual rec
ord, legend, or tradition of any Israe
lite migration to the west, what were
the curious resemblances to practices
in the Old Testament that were con
strued as indicating Israelite origin?
Whence came the American Indians?
These questions lay outside the scope
of my Lost Tribes A Myth (Duke Uni
versity Press, 1930). They are the cen
tral features of an inquiry which our
encyclopaedic scholar-friend Blumen-
thal has been pressing for twenty
years. No other man has such an im
mense body of material, or accumu
lated such a bibliography of the rare
and curious relative to the theory of
Indian “Lost Tribes”. Some advance
chapters of a massive work are pre
sented in an 80-page booklet, In Old
America (Walton Book Co. $2.00).
Dr. Blumenthal employs the method
of the expert anthropologist. His open
ing chapter, “False Messiahs and
Psychic Frenzies” is of inestimable
value for those who suppose that the
whole circle of ideas associated with
a Jewish Messiah was peculiar to a
very small divinely selected group of
ancient Hebrew seers. The average
Protestant Sunday-School teacher
never heard anything else. My own
classes come from the ranks of col
lege graduates. I have never yet had
one who knew anything of the swarm
of facts concerning messianism among
the Indians and other non-Israelite
peoples. Some are always disturbed at
the application of the term “messiah”
to non-biblical personages. Dr. Blu
menthal concludes the keen sympa
thetic outlook upon all humanity thus:
“The messianic longings of man
have ever been a reflex of his mundane
distresses, often heightened by the
memory of a glorious past. Such long
ing has been his reaction to the pangs
of persecution, his protest against the
buffets of outrageous fortune, his
dream of deliverance from things as
they are. And so, often, he was led
or misled to embody his long deferred
hopes in the flesh of one or another
obsessed figure. These messianic pre
tenders, the strange vessels of man s
outpoured spirit, are now seen to have
been pathetic rather than ignoble;
their frenzy and trances pitiable
GODBEY
nt at Duke University
rather than revolting; and the cred
ulity of their followers natural rather
than vile. They were not, perhaps,
conscious impostors but self-deluded:
hence undeserving of the appellation
of “pseudo-messiah”. The afflatus
which led them to believe that they
were appointed to usher in the re
demption of their people was not false
merely because it failed.”
For this one chapter I place Dr.
Blumenthal’s book on my reference-
shelf for students of messianism. But
there are other chapters, equally sur
prising to the popular reader: the
fact that “cities of refuge” or the
privilege of asylum was familiar ev
erywhere in America. Dr. Otto Hell-
wig treated this institution in Africa
and America in 1903 in Das Asyl-
rechtsdec Naturvolker: and a later
monograph treated Das Asylrecht in
Ozeanien. I discussed The Semitic City
of Refuge in the Monist, 1905, deal
ing with the records from Assyria and
Babylonia: and an important chapter
in The Lost Tribes A Myth last year
adds other material.
Similarly the chapter on “Circumci
sion In Red America” will surprise all
average popular expositors of the Old
Testament, and “Lo, the Poor Squaw”,
showing the dominance of the matri-
archate, or woman’s headship in fam
ily, clan, and tribe, among the Indians.
Dr. Morgenstern has been doing a sim
ilar work for the Old Testament, dem
onstrating the existence of beenah
marriage and the matriarchate among
pre-Israelite and Israelite peoples of
ancient Palestine. Seven as a sacred
number among many Indian tribes
will also surprise the popular reader.
To the historian of religion it seems
that all such work as Dr. Blumenthal’s
should draw religionists closer to
gether. I have read no one with a
keener and more dispassionate sense
of final values. When we learn that
many things claimed as a unique pos
session or characteristic by this or
that religious group are really common
to humanity at large, some exclusive
pretensions will disappear. I have
heard a personal friend, Rabbi Wil-
liamowsky, characterize existing relig
ious difference thus, “I saw two la
dies looking at dresses in a shop-win
dow: one marked $7.00, one $15.00.
‘Why such difference in price? They
are the same material,’ said one. ‘No,
they are quite different’ said the other.
‘No, it’s the same material, and the
same pattern; they have a little differ-
ent trimming!’ said the first. ’
Belgrade, Yugoslavia.—For the first
time in the history of the country a
woman has been allowed to occupy
a pulpit in an orthodox synagogue.
The young lady is Rosa Bradt, wl o
recently graduated from the theolo
gical seminary. She administers all
the functions of a rabbi, including
preaching and teaching, but she can
not perform marriages or grant di
vorces, in accordance with the tradi
tional ban on women’s participation
in these affairs.
London.—The clamping of a rigid
censorship on the W arsaw news
papers, both Jewish and non-Jewish,
has shut off a source of reliable in
formation on what is actually hap
pening in Poland. Jewish newspapers
have been confiscated because they
gave detailed news of the riots. Non-
Jewish newspapers as well have been
suspended for the particular edition
because they printed articles intended
to incite anti-Semitic feeling.
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