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by Pierre Van Paassen More than a Humanist— a Pioneer REUBEN BRAININ SEEN THROUGH GENTILE EYES S MOULDERING black eyes lit up by a mystic flame; jet-colored hair falling on his shoulders in broad curls; delicately chiseled features as if cut out of fine old ivory; a majestic bearing accompanied by calm, aristocratic gestures; a deep basso voice that vibrates softly in echo to a ceaseless spiritual activity—there you have the Reuben Brainin of forty years ago as he emerged from the Russian ghetto and startled the Jewish world by breaking with the old traditions in writ ing Hebrew literature in the modern European manner. Up to that time Hebrew literature was written, to be sure, but it was not intended to say Rrubrn Brainin anything. Brainin as one of the leaders of a new school blew the breath of life into it. For the first time the Jews of Eastern Europe were hear- , ing metaphysical problems discussed in Hebrew. Brainin launched into dissertations on the judicial and social questions of the day in a language that was considered here too sacred as a vehicle for profane matters, there philologically unsuitable for adaptation to modern life. Hebrew was, as Renan had said, never to be a language for every-day use, but the sole instrument of expression for the fan tastic visions of the ancient Prophets. Up to the time of Brainin’s advent, the Hebrew language as well as spiritual life in the Jewish world moved wholly in the ether. It is his achieve ment and the achievement of the men of the new school of Hebrew literature, of which Nahum Sokolow is the only other survivor today, that he brought Hebrew out of the ether back down to earth. The revival of the Hebrew language was an act of revolutionary import. When Reuben Brainin and a handful of friends boldly swung the still feeble bark of the sacred tongue upon the stream of modern life, the Jew's w r ere at first be wildered by the spectacle. They blinked at the amazing innovation. Fierce opposition developed. REUBEN BRAININ’S SEVENTIETH ANNI VERSARY was recently celebrated at a public Testimonial Reception in New York. The writer of this tribute is the noted foreign cor- respondent who just concluded a five weeks visit to this country, including a visit to At lanta. Van Paassen’s views and analysis are interesting. They express the opinion of an unprejudiced and objective observer of con temporary Jewish life. 'File religionists screamed sacrilege in hysterical alarm. The assimilationists sneered in cynical aloofness, dubbing Brainin’s venture the brain storm of a fool. Yet he has lived to see the day when modern Hebrew became the official language of Palestine. He has lived to see Nietzsche and Goethe, Einstein and Freud, Barbusse and Trot- zky, Unamuno and Brandes translated into He brew and scores of periodicals and publications, some of them of the most intricate technical na ture, appear in the Hebrew language. He could say in truth that when he w 7 as young the Hebrew 7 language appeared like an old man w'hose days were spent, w T ho w 7 as resting by the wayside, and now that he himself has come to the eventide of life, the Hebrew 7 language has renewed its youth like an eagle which is testing the strength of its wings on a sun-drenched morning in May and filling its lungs with the pure air of a new life. Some may think that Reuben Brainin is today a lonely figure. For the last couple of years he has remained almost silent. Yet his silence has spoken loudly and clearly to thousands, nay, hun dreds of thousands of young Jew's w 7 ho are groping towards a solution of the Jewish problem. These followers of Brainin are quietly mobilizing, strug gling to free themselves of the narrow 7 concepts of a petty nationalism—or, rather, chauvinism—into w 7 hich some leaders, young and old, are trying to force them. Just as Romain Rolland, the great solitary conscience of Europe, is to the ethical in tellectual the light-house whose mere existence now shows the path, so Reuben Brainin has emerged stronger and a sublime personality from the intolerant barking under which small politic ians have tried to bury him. To me, contemplat es the Jewish scene from a distance Reuben Brainin is a lonely figure. Mountain peaks are solitary landmarks in any landscape. Few people can stand the pure, rarified air on a high altitude. In the eventide of life Reuben Brainin remem bers the struggles he has witnessed. He has seen ideas succeed ideas most directly opposed to them reaction follow action, democracy autocracy, socialism, individualism. To Reuben Brainin be longs the honor of having understood each gener ation and of haying retained a bitter admiration for the undying faith of humanity even when each generation consumed in its own heart, believing it alone had reached the zenith, hurled its prede cessors down, took unto itself all the glory, only hind 6 Smitten ^ th ° Se Wh ° Came P ressi "g ™ be- It is an outrageous calumny to say of Reuben Brainin that he has deserted the cause of the Jewish people as expressed in Zionism by recogniz ing the value of the Russian experiment. He re mains a nationalist Jew. But to him nationalism means: first, the people, and then the land, and not reversely. This view permits, at least, 0 f tranquil discussion, and only those who are blinded by Europe’s hereditary malady of chauvinism, men do not respond to the ideals of tomorrow but whose entire orientation is directed toward the past, will persist in condemning Reuben Brainin’s stand. At a moment in life when most men petrify and become dead-set in their notions, Brainin re tained that suppleness of spirit which is charac teristic of the true cosmopolitan and idealist, ac knowledging the value of the Russian experiment. It is the sacred flame of humanity that burns in Reuben Brainin. His feeling for truth made it impossible for him to be silent. He has had dis- illusionments. But they have been precious experi ences to him; his trials, but ladders to higher things. In contrast with many Jews, some of them leaders in Jewish life, Branin has never confined his outlook to the Jew'ish scene. Early he recog nized that every race is necessary, for its peculiar characteristics are requisite for the enrichment of multiplicity and for the consequent enlargement of life. Reuben Brainin did what few 7 Jews, even modern Jews, have done: he made peace with the world, when he found that everything had its appointed place in the whole scheme. He be lieved and lived out his belief that what may arouse hostility in isolation serves to bind the w r hole together. When other men clamped them selves desperately and in mortal anguish to the status quo, Reuben Brainin had the courage to say that it is sometimes necessary to pull down old buildings and to clear the ground before we can begin to build anew. Knowing that for the next century it will be impossible to find a home tor a majority of the Jew's in their ow r n fatherland, he wants them to be helpers towards the founda tion of the universal fatherland. A nationalist Jew ahvays, he has nevertheless succeeded in escaping the confines and limits ot hi> own people and—those of his own generation. Ht* has felt as by instinct that each nation, as is t' 1 ' case with each individual, has experience ot no more than a part of life, a part of truth, a p‘ of reality, each mistaking (Please turn to P< l 9 e - Man and Book by Boris Schatz * THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE