Newspaper Page Text
speak for themselves:
PRAISE YE HIM
Almighty God! That shinest
with the sun,
Thou slumbrest not when day
grows into night!
Thou source of all, of tranquil
peace and joy!
Thou King of Glory and
majestic light!
Thou all-good Father! Golden
rays of day
And starry hosts Thy praise to
sing unite,
Creator of heav’n and elarth,
Eternal One
That watchest every creature
from Thy height.
This is a beautiful paraphrase
of Psalm XIX: “The heavens de
clare the glory of God and the
firmament showeth His Handi
work”.
But the time came when the
Jewish Minnesinger gave up his
medieval profession in despair,
judging from the following poem:
PERSONAL
Why should I wander sadly,
my harp within my hand,
Over mountain, hill and valley,
what praise do I command?
Full well they know the singer
belongs to race accursed;
Sweet Minne doth no longer
reward me as at first.
Be silent, then, my lyre,
we sing ’fore lords in vain;
I’ll leave the minstrels’ choir
and roam a Jew again. ,
My staff and hat I’ll grasp them,
and on my breast full low
By Jewish custom olden
my grizzled beard shall grow.
My days I’ll pass in quiet—
those left to me on earth—
Nor sing for those who not yet
have learned a poet’s worth.
This is the most personal and,
therefore, the most revealing
poem about his life and work.
From the lines about his beard, it
is inferred that at one time he
may have abjured Judaism to
please his noble patrons, but that
he returned to it later. The poem
is a bitter complaint about his
patrons’ ingratitude, for they not
only ill-rewarded his songs, but
harshly drove him from their
courts. So he returned to his
high-walled ghetto, disappointed
and broken-hearted to resume his
humble life among his unfortunate
Jewish brethren. Heinrich Heine’s
bitter words come to mind: “Bur
dened forever with a three-fold
evil poverty and pain and—Juda
ism”. Both poets had turned away
from the Jewish faith for a meal
ticket and both returned to it
again bitterly repenting their
temporary apostacy.
THE WOLF’S COMPLAINT
A wolf once wailed: ‘Where
shall I go? Man scolds me
and drives me out when I
hunt for my daily bread. But
was I not put into this world
to do so?
So the fault is not mine. ;
Many a man has his house well
The Southern Israelite
built through cheating, cross
ing and lying.
He trebles his money without
work—by shrewdness and de
ceit.
Is he not worse than I hunting
a meager goose?
No red coins of sparkling gold
are mine to pay for my meals.
Therefore, I must steal and kill,
when my stomach aches—a
prey of gnawing hunger.
But the deceitful man’s shrewd
cunning inflicts more bitter
wrongs than I ever do:
For he hides his crimes under
honesty’s deceitful mask.”
As a poetical composition, the
fable of the wolf is one of the
finest. The grim wolf wails that
only hunger compels him to steal
and to kill, who although scorned,
hated and cursed, must live and
eat, because his empty stomach
cries for food, strikingly reveals
the overwhelmingly tragic fate
of the entire Jewish race and
their sufferings through the mill
ennia. All other professions being
closed to them, they had to be
come money-lenders and had a
right to cry out bitterly “the fault
is not mine,” the old accusing out
cry rising towards a grey, veiled
heaven. The whole misery of the
Jewish people, intellectual - and
social, is portrayed in this poem.
Jews had scarcely recuperated
from the horrible First Crusade of
1096, when a second Crusade in
1147 reduced them again to the
most miserable state. The suffer
ing of his brethren left a deep
scar on Suesskind’s mind, for he
saw them huddled together in a
miserable ghetto, hungry, sqalid,
an easy prey to strong and cruel
oppressors. The poet vibrates with
emotion and bitterness, impotent
in his revolt, with flaming hate,
against the wilful persecutions by
those precursors of the Nazi ideol
ogy. He is the eloquent poet of
the woes and injustice suffered
by his brethren. It is a kind of
apologetic fable, a defense of the
Jews against their ruthless and
cruel accusers.
So this short fable—a real mas
terpiece of agony and pleading—
apart from its intrinsic beauty,
and its fine and appealing pas
sages—is of special importance as
one of the earliest and most mov
ing apologetic pieces in Jewish-
German literature.
There is no doubt that Suess
kind’s religion exposed him to
many bitter wrongs; many a cruel
injustice must have been meted
out to him which the sensitive
man must have resented bitterly.
This poem is a cry of anguish
bursting forth, the first flaming
protest against blaming the Jew
for being a Shylock. Of Shakes
peare’s “Merchant of Venice: “For
suffering is the badge of all our
tribe” (ibid. I, 3) and Shy lock’s
defense: “Hath not a Jew eyes?
Hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, pas
sions? fed with the same food,
hurt with the same weapons, sub
ject to the same diseases, healed
SAVANNAH'S FOU
RESTAURANTS...
VICTORY M. AT SKIDAWAY MX
• VtyeXXX
VICTORY DR. AT ORAYSON STAD.
y+a/ivesty/ouse
2 MILES SOUTH ON U. S. 17
She pirates’ Jtouse
20 CAST BROAD STREET
SAVANNAH, GA.
Reduce Your Fire Insurance Costs
The Atlantic Mutual Fire Insurance Co.
OF SAVANNAH
FRED WESSELS, JR., Pr.tid.nl W. C. BROWNE, Secretary
INSURES
ALL PREFERRED RISKS
Agencies in All Principal Southern Cities
Resources Over $5,000,000.00
ANNUAL DIVIDEND SAVINGS
TO POLICYHOLDERS
17 McDONOUGH ST., WEST SAVANNAH, GROROIA
"KEEP GEORGIA GREEN"
• GROW MORE TREES
STOP FOREST FIRES
UNION BAG-CAMP PAPER CORP.
SAVANNAH, GA.
ll