SmyaHlos—By Sholem Asch, Translatea. by Willa and Edwin Muir.
Victor Gollancz, "London," &/6.
The strength of Jewish tradition can never be realized by the mind Gerald EH. Palmer, "With, of 2 Gentile until "Salvation" has. tu introduction by Professor A.|een read. AN preconceptions fall wey and the tremendous truth stands fut that the strength to bear the heaviest. burdens, "to survive the Bitterest_ "persecutions, and. the Uunyielding power of the faith tha: makes all Tereel one nation, and more than that, one soul, are as great Tovday a8 they' have been throughout the history of this people from Says of. Abraham.
Jechiel, whose father did_ nothing to support his. wife snd. children, [Is the central" gute of the book. Round him fs woven a narrative that {ells of life in a small Polish town, the time being soon atter the defeat Napoleon. "Jechiel, who is at fest Scorned for possessing. little ability master the law, and. this means the divine word as made' knows through the "Sacred Scriptures and through Rabbinical writings, such. the Talmud and. the Cabbala, becomes in time a. great teacher him= Sell, His way is not that trodden by Sountless Scholars who tie. in. time to become. grest "Rabbis. full almost superhuman wisdom, But. possessed of much. pity for" the fellow beings, but through the hea: joined with fong study and. meditac tion onthe Paaims. No one ie 129 poor oF too humble or too miserable for Jechiet to love and feel for.
hips his mother asa boy, and later, "when she dies and be must make his own way in the worl, he the servant of all who are most abject and unconsidered in the world "As a study In the development. of 'a man's. soul the story of Jechiel Tite reaches heights which are seldory offered to the contemplation of the ordinary reader. One #262. In. ale? fon this Israelite without guile, ftdvances. steadily "slong the way Ittumination as he grows older. tact with the astemations "When Jechiel fet Rimset in con-when"he mounted into. the Teal Infinite ey. the whole of ite Wecarne feat Snd'comprehensibe fo him, and ven earthly existence' took Sten value, becoming a link fin the bridge leading from" one Teaches who had ded him on eye and" of" hie inter, And coen was tot rity tsp home oe'Seeulae Ahad become the home may be thought from the two extracts" given above that one' is Seing treated fo the life of a saint ana so, "Salvation" contains a great deal besides the beautiful character of Jechiel. There are, to paine but Yew, his own peculiarly irresponsible father, a Polish nobleman, whose ints live in abject fear of their half-demented landlord, and a particularly odious "pious wig." evidently the usual term for an elderly woman who goes about frightening younger and more timid women with tales of he torments awaiting them in the next world, no matter how much they have suffered in this one.
Sholem Asch has achieved a masterpiece in "Salvation." It is 2 book that will stand out in all the ist of works for which the Jewish people have supplied the clay, from the days of Israel Zangwill to our own, and that will command the admiration of all who can follow with interest the unfolding of human destiny along the paths of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.