1 FEBRUARY 1919, Page 23

Chosen Peoples. By Israel Zangwill. (Allen and Cowin. 28. net.)—This,

the first "Arthur Davis Memorial Lecture" before the Jewish Historical Society, is an eloquent refutation of an unnamed American's theory that " Germanism is Judaism." Mr. Zangwill admits that the Old Testament is full of horrors such as the Germans have tried to equal, and that "Judaism has even its Song of Hate, accompanied on the timbrel by Miriam." But these things, he adds, are primitive survivals which Judaiem outgrew ages since, and which throw into relief the grandeur of the Old Testament ideal and its universality. He compares the growth in England of a belief in her mission ;

the mission which in Thomson is purely self-centred becomes in Kipling almost as universal as the visions of the Hebrew bards." This note of " Recessional " is lacking in Pan-Ger- manism. " While the prophets and historians of Germany monotonously glorify their nation, the Jewish writers as mono- tonously rebuke theirs," with the self-depreciation which we often regard as an English habit, as old as Milton at least.