29 NOVEMBER 1924, Page 13

THE JEWS IN WORLD HISTORY [To the Editor of the

SPECTATOR.] SIR,—As a descendant of the " chosen people," I should like to point out the strength of Mr. Alan Porter's argument, which was passed over by your correspondent of Novem- ber 15th in his protest. One need only read Heine to see the justice of Mr. Porter's remarks ; the destructive and disillusioned irony with which he lashes Prussians, Bavarians, friends and enemies alike is certainly representative of the modern Jewish soul. The civilized Jew believes in literally nothing (i.e., comfort and prosperity) awl plays Heine's part of self-conscious cynic in European scciety. Modern Jewish writers either live in their imagination in Ancient Israel, like Messieurs Spire and Fleg or ' like the majority' Appolinaire, Max Jacob and Proust (who, I believe, was of Jewish extraction), in France, Bierbaum and a host of others in Germany, Mr. Siegfried Sassoon in England, not to mention the " Behaviourists " in Vienna, are cast after the mould of Heine. Mr. Porter's attack is only too just, but the Christian- izing of which he speaks is not necessarily a ccnversicn to the Christian religion, but to the spirit of Christ, which has penetrated of late into the life, if not into the religion, of the Jews of Western Europe. What is needed is not the accept- ance of the forms of another religion, but the spirit of all religion.

The Jews of the Near East at the time of Sabattai Zcvi, the self-styled Messiah, were evolving a religion for thernseh e; and had accepted the doctrine of reincarnation. Their efforts, however, failed. Some Jews, and I include myself in their number, are striving to attain the real spirit of religion and find the disillusion of Heine deep in the soul and not easily cast out. The raison d'e-tre of the Jewish religion died at the coming of the Christ, its culminating point ; since then it has survived largely on account of persecutions ; if the Jew, however, is to make his contribution to the future of the world, • he must throw off the Mosaic spirit, which lingers even with the latest prophets, and strive to advance Jewish religious conceptions to the level of modern spiritual