among all the literatures of the world the jewish literature is the only one that did not develop in any one land and the destinies of which are not connected with any one country. it has neither a certain local odor nor a certain local color, and it has seldom been the product of local conditions. there are a good many scholars who go so far as to say that the jews had litterateurs only and not a literature, because the conception of a national literature involves national territory, a national political organization, and national traditions. a people, these scholars say, may produce a great numbers of writers and poets and may still be said not to possess a national literature. formerly scholars who argued to that effect may have been right. if we take into consideration the psychological continuity of jewish literature ever since the jews began their career as a wandering people, we are justified in doubting the wisdom of this conception.
although jewish literature has undergone many radical changes (the change in language being only one prime fact) and although it has been as restless as the jewish people, compelled to wander from one country to another, it has still succeeded in preserving certain prime qualities and characteristics which entitle it to bear the proud name of national literature. it is easy to recognize the age of a jewish literary document, but it is not so easy to ascertain the place and locality where it was produced. the hebrew-italian school of the eighteenth century resembles in many respects the hebrew-spanish school of the middle ages, and the russian-hebrew school of the present time has much similarity not only to the various hebrew schools of the twelfth and the eighteenth centuries but even to the biblical period. it suffices only to mention the name of bialik to show how near we are today to the spirit of the biblical period.
this is true of hebrew poetry but not of hebrew prose. here the results of migration are very noticeable. the jewish literature of the alexandrian period has hardly anything in common with babylonian jewish literature, and the literature created in the provence is quite different in character from that created in central asia or in africa. in other words, while the contemplative jewish mind succeeds in preserving its chief original qualities, the meditative jewish mind was subject to certain degrees of assimilation. as long as the hebrew language was the means of expression for the jewish literary spirit the effect of migration from one country to another was to make jewish literature more picturesque and more interesting. but it did not fill the literary mind with new contents. sometimes the effect of the new surroundings was not felt at all. this is due to the fact that, with the hebrew language as cultivated by the jews, there goes a certain philosophy of life and of things. the fate of the jews throughout the ages, more or less similar in every land, contributed also to the psychological continuity of the hebrew literary mind. this expresses itself best in the hebrew elegy. when one reads bialik's "poems of wrath," one thinks at once of hebrew poems of a similar kind written hundreds of years ago. hebrew prose on the other hand underwent slight changes during the jewish migrations.
since the jews have entered modern civilization and have adopted the language of the gentiles as a medium of literary expression, the effects of migration on the jewish literary mind have begun to make themselves felt in a rather unpleasant way. this unpleasantness consists not in the variety of languages in which modern jewish literature is so rich, but in the variety of ideas and conceptions which the hebrew language imposed on the individual. the works of jewish writers who write in european languages, even if they deal only with jewish subjects, do not belong to jewish literature alone; we cannot proclaim these works as our national possessions because of the very non-jewish elements which characterize them.
on another occasion we have already shown how jewish historiography and our history of jewish literature have been influenced by non-jewish elements. it goes without saying that all the other branches of our prose literature, as far as they have not been written in hebrew, are strongly influenced by non-jewish elements to a very great extent. very often it is difficult to recognize what is jewish and what is non-jewish in these works. everyone acquainted with the theological developments of[110] judaism within the last hundred years knows how jewish theology in the west has gradually become alienated from its jewish origin and come nearer to a christian point of view. no less an important theologian than schleiermacher characterized so-called modern judaism as being very similar to modern christianism. it will readily be understood that it was not christianity that came nearer to judaism but, on the contrary, judaism that came nearer christianity. it would, of course, be wrong and historically untrue to say that only in modern times has a non-jewish element begun to creep into jewish literature. it is moreover a fact that ever since the jews have used foreign tongues for literary expression, they have been compelled to admit non-jewish elements into their works. this is true of philo and to a certain extent even of maimonides' "moreh." is it not peculiar that all the great mediators between judaism and the gentile world have written their philosophical works either in greek or in arabic or in some modern language, and that those jewish philosophers who have written their philosophical works in hebrew have never tried to play the rôle of mediators? philo, who wrote in greek, tried to mediate between platonism and judaism. maimonides, who wrote the "moreh" in arabic, tried to mediate between aristotelism and judaism, and herman cohen tries to mediate between kantianism and judaism. there are, of course, exceptions to the rule. nachman krochmal was a thorough hegelian and wrote his "moreh" in hebrew. but this is just the exception which proves the rule. most of our philosophers who wrote in hebrew developed a more or less purely hebrew philosophy and contributed to the development of the hebrew mind which found its purest expression in the bible, the talmud and the haggaddah.
all this would go to show that the psychological continuity of the hebrew literary mind and the true development of the jewish mind can best be safeguarded through the medium of hebrew. hebrew is to the jews and to the literature of the jewish people more than a language. it replaces the many elements required for the sound development of a national literature which we have not, such as a country, local traditions, a national political organization, and so on. as long as hebrew is the medium of literary expression among the jews, jewish literature deserves the name of a national literature and is a national literature. if, however, the jewish mind does not express itself any more through the medium of hebrew, the productions of this mind do not solely belong to us and are not part and parcel of our national property. they belong to the others as well as to us and probably more to them. herein lies the importance of hebrew for the development of judaism and the jewish mind.
