hen
Glaubens). The former, as the name implies, is Zionistic; the latter
is opposed to Zionism. Their relation to each other, however, is not
like that between the Menorah and the Zionist societies in American
colleges. The Hasmonea and the Sprevia are mutually exclusive, rather
than complementary to each other. The German Jewish student does not
come to the university with a mind open and free as to Judaism. He
comes there with definite views on the subject which have already been
crystallized under the influence of early training. Judaism, of
whatever shade it may happen to be, is more potent a factor in the
domestic life of German Jews and in the bringing up of the young than
it is with us here. Jewish boys there evince a keener interest in
Judaism than do Jewish boys in America. Their intelligent
understanding of Judaism is therefore not necessarily preceded by a
period of indifference and lack of knowledge. It steadily grows and
develops with them from their early youth. And so by the time they
enter the university, at an age somewhat older than that of our
average freshman, their Jewish consciousness is mature and fixed. They
are able to judge whether they can work for or against Zionism, for to
them Zionism is the only vital question in present-day Judaism, a
question which they are willing to face squarely and once for all
determine their position towards it; and it is on this question of
Zionism and the future destiny of the Jews as a nation that the two
leading student organizations radically differ.

There is another quite as notable distinction between our Menorah and
the Jewish students' organizations in Germany. With us the Menorah is
primarily an undergraduate society. When graduate Menorah Societies
arise, they may be confederated with the undergraduate organization,
but they will of course retain their separate character. In Germany
this distinction between undergraduate and graduate does not exist.
Matriculation in the University, not the taking of a degree in it,
introduces one into the society of the educated with its appellative
"intellectual" corresponding to our "high-brow" rather than to our
"college grad." Joining the membership of a student organization marks
the entrance into that large class of "intellectuals." And once you
join such an organization you are a member ever after. In Germany, in
fact, nobody graduates from a university in the same sense that we do.
There the taking of a degree