Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 17 June 1955 — Page 7

fSUKf, June 17. lft>.

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'JEWISH CEREMONIAL By MEYER LEVIN JEWISH CEREMONIAL ART, edited by Stephen S. Kayser, with Guido Sehoenberger as associate. Jewish Publication Society. S3.00. All those arguments about is there or is there not a Jewish art usually linger for a moment upon the style of Jewish objects of worship. Anyone who wants to join this part of the argument can get a fine education in the subject from this elegant book, which is rich in photographs of decorated kiddush cups. Torah breastplates, Passover plates, and elaborate marriage rings. Most of the material comes from the collections of the Jewish Museum of the Jewish Theological Seminary of New York. There are some astonishingly U beautiful examples of craftsman-! ship. But as Dr. Kayser points out in his excellent introduction, there LEVIN is no “Jewish’' style; the style is baroque) and it is this style that attaches to our objects of worship because it is only since the baroque 16th Century that we seem to have been able to accumulate and preserve these objects.

MANY JEWS, surely, cherish vague notions that the symbols on our ceremonial objects date back in design and even in style to the days of the Temple. The seven-branched candlestick is about the only object so antique in origin. The rampant

ART' GIVES FINE EDUCATION ON SUBJECT

lions, while typical of the heraldry of ancient Mesopotamia, are known as decorations of the Torah Ark only since the 16th Century, when they w r ere introduced in Candia, Crete. This handsome catalogue consists almost entirely of photographs faced by brief descriptions. It is a fine book to possess, and leaf through time and again, for an appreciation of the intricacy of design, and the elegance of these objects. And it is interesting to think that a break with the baroque style has come only very recently, since modern sculptors and artisans have begun to design objects of worship, and synagogue decorations. A companion volume of such modern wwks would be of high interest. • THE NAG, by Mendele Mocher Seforim. Translated from the Yiddish by Moshe Spiegel. Illustrated by Kurt Werth. Beechhurst Press. $3.50 This classic by the “grandfather” of Yiddish literature is here presented in a devoutly pure and first-rate translation that captures the irony, the satire, the fanasy of the original work, and makes us realize that Mendele was a precursor of Kafka. His tale is an allegory about a poor student, Isrulik, and a skinny nag, the nag symbolizing the Jewish people. When Isrulik first encounters the animal, the poor horse is being kicked off the common green, simply because it is so starved and beaten-looking.

Isrulik then goes through a series of hallucina* tory adventures, in which he meets up with Asmodeus and other demons. He recites legends of King Solomon, and of a Golem. He witnesses from on high the butcheries of a pogrom, and he describes them with a fiery pen. Isrulik encounters the nag in various situations, usually of pain and travail; but the nag alw'ays survives, always lands on its feet. As for style, here is the student’s meeting with a witch: “My beauty and I met and exchanged bows. At a sign from Asmodeus, Rohirot popped up with a long oven rake, and the next moment my lady put on a large weird hat adorned with a live bat on either side and got astride the wooden steed the mangy-tailed demon w’as holding for her while I, Isrulik. mounted behind her, holding on to her with both hands—and off we went, soaring blithely through the air.” Such passages could easily rank “grandfather” Mendele with some of our ultra-modems. Up-to-date, too are the bitter observation in the devil’s 10 commandments. Such as “My third precept is: Show mercy! This means that one may do everything that is vile, rob both the dead and the living, and all in the name of mercy. Surreptitiously, you may nip, bite, inflict pain, but when you’re in public you must worry, sigh, and strive for the common welfare.” Gut gesogt, old Mendele.

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“BEST SERMONS” 1955 Edition Edited by G. PAUL BUTLER $-1.50 Discount for Rabbis and Libraries LOUIS STAVSKY House of Religious Articles and Books 358 Grand St„ New York 2, N.Y.

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Order for High Holidays How for best prices and best service You can place your order now r and take shipment from us in September, and then go on your vacation assured that your needs in the way of textbooks, school supplies and High Holiday items are all taken care of. ROSENBLUM’S HEBREW BOOK STORE 3428 West Roosevelt Road — C^hicago, Illinois