JEWISH ANTHOLOGY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27357, 5 April 1950, Page 2

JEWISH ANTHOLOGY

Wisdom Of The East

The Wisdom of Israel. An Anthology by Lewis Browne. Michael Joseph. 12s 6d.

This volume is a companion to similar anthologies on China and India and, like them, it is a little library of books most of which the general reader is unlikely to come into contact with but which, with some encouragement, he can read with pleasure and profit. The editor, Lewis Browne, an authority on Jewish History and literature, has made this book rather a challenging one for, by ranging from the Torah to such modern writers as Ludwig Lewisohn and Sholom Asch, he emphasises the continuing tradition of Irsael. There is a purpose in this for he writes in his introduction: “ The moral is plain. The Jews, who have already contributed so much to mankind, should be left free to contribute still more.” This is special pleading, something which was lacking in the two previous “ wisdom" books, but which is, to a degree, characteristic. Of the contents of the book, only those of a little more than a quarter are familiar. These are the extracts from the literature of the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha. The texts, however, are slightly different in their wording and also in their setting-out. The Talmudic quotatmns reveal how the rabbis kept the spirit of Israel alive after the destruction of Jerusalem. Then there is the renaissance ” of Jewish writings when the scholars discovered the wisdom of the Greeks. Out of the Dark Ages also came much practical philosophy, including that of Spinoza The modern period includes extracts from the prose works of Heine and the poems of Bialik. The various sections are annotated in a manner which adds much to the reader’s pleasure.