o death. But now that I am able to fulfill it
shall I not rejoice?" And with the last syllable of the "Shema"--Hear,
Oh Israel, the Lord our God the Lord is One--Akiba expired.

[Illustration: Signature: George J. Horowitz]

EDITORS' NOTE.--_This is the third in a series of
sketches of "Jewish Worthies," of which the fourth
will have "Judah the Prince" for its subject._

_HEBREWS willingly neglectful of their own inheritance
cannot hope to be of much value as Americans. Nor is
the republic interested in suppressing this or any
other valuable legacy from the past. Our "assimilative
process" is far off from being the terrible thing
which European critics sometimes charge against us. We
do reshape peoples who come to us from the old world,
but not at the cost of the things they cherish or of
the gifts they bring. Our civilization is enriched,
not impoverished, by these diverse race traits,
loyalty to which helps to make a loyalty worth having.
If the future world order is to be founded on the
harmonization of ethnic differences, there should be
place enough for such differences in our own
peace-aspiring republic._--_From an Editorial in The
Boston Herald._

Aspects of Jewish Life and Letters

_As Revealed in Four Noteworthy Books_

I

A SYMPATHETIC STUDY OF PHARISAISM[B]

AS a rule, Jewish readers approach the works of Christian writers upon
Jewish subjects with distrust. They are accustomed to find in them
either the misrepresentations of Anti-Semitic hatred or the
misrepresentations of conversionist love. The present book, based upon
lectures delivered at Oxford upon the Hibbert foundation, is a
representative of the rare group of studies belonging to neither
class. It embodies an earnest and surprisingly successful attempt to
depict justly the religious life of the Jews in the time of the
Talmud. The writer is well prepared for his task by thirty years'
devoted study of Rabbinical literature; he is known as the author of a
careful and scholarly work on "Christianity in Talmud and Midrash."

The book includes a preliminary historical sketch, a study of what the
Rabbis meant by Torah, indicating the true nature of Pharisaic
legalism, chapters on the attitude of Jesus and of Paul toward the
Pharisees, and two final chapters on the Pharisaic theology