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PROSSNITZ

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1893. Here, with William C. Popper, he founded the internationally-known firm of William C. Popper and Co. In 1924, at the death of Popper, Proskauer became head of the firm, one of the world's leading printing and lithography establishments.

Proskauer was a benefactor of several private charitable undertakings, including the Lakeview Home for Girls at Arrochar Park, Staten Island. This home was founded by his wife, Bertha Richman Proskauer, and her sister, Julia Richman, first woman superintendent of New York city schools.

PROSKAUER, JOSEPH MEYER, judge and leader in charitable and civic movements, b. Mobile, Ala., 1877. He attended Columbia University (A.B., 1896; LL.B., 1899), and was admitted to the New York bar in 1899. In 1903 he became a partner in the law firm of Elkus, Gleason and Proskauer, the senior member of which was Abram I. Elkus, later a judge of the New York state supreme court and Ambassador to Turkey. This association continued for twenty years, and was dissolved only upon the election of Proskauer to the New York state supreme court in 1923. In 1927, after receiving the honorary LL.D. degree from Columbia University, he was appointed by Governor Alfred E. Smith associate justice for the Appellate Division, resigning in 1930 to resume the practice of law as senior member of the firm of Proskauer, Rose and Paskus. His skill as a jurist won recognition in many ways, including appointment (1935) by Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia to the nine-member Charter Revision Commission of New York city.

Throughout his career Proskauer devoted time and energy to many communal and philanthropic activities. After serving for some years as vice-president of the Jewish Board of Guardians, he was elected (1926) president of the Ninety-Second Street Young Men's Hebrew Association, New York, the oldest organization of its kind in the country. In 1931 he was elected president of the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies of New York City, a post which carried with it leadership of the world's largest community chest. Proskauer was a member of the executive committee of the American Jewish Committee from 1933 on, and director of the National Refugee Service from 1942 on. In January, 1943, he was elected presiIdent of the American Jewish Committee, to succeed Maurice Wertheim, who had resigned that office.

A striking and forceful personality, Proskauer achieved distinction as an incisive, eloquent speaker. He was frequently called upon to deliver keynote addresses on notable occasions in both Jewish and general American life.

Throughout his career, Proskauer adhered firmly to the principle that the Jewish community is essentially a religious one, and that the only valid basis for Jewish unity is the fellowship of religious belief and philanthropic conduct. This led him into vigorous opposition to political Zionism. On similar grounds he opposed the formation of a World Jewish Congress. But recently he emphasized the importance and the possibility of securing "united conduct" without the necessity of any compromise of principles. HARRY SCHNEIDERMAN.

Lit.: Opinion, March, 1935, p. 5; American Hebrew, Nov. 20 and 27, 1936; April 24, 1925; April 23, 1926; May 14, 1926; Nov. 16, 1928; Jan. 11, 1929; Jan. 2 and 4, 1931; Nov. 20 and 27, 1931; Feb. 12, 1932; Feb. 2, 1934; Jan. 18, 1935; Feb. 22, 1935; Jan. 5, 1936, on the "Resignation and Report of High Commissioner James G. McDonald"; Nov. II, 1936, on "Americanism and Judaism"; Nov. 27, 1936, on "Shattering the Communist Myth;" Sept. 12, 1938, on Patrick Cardinal Hayes; Jan. 24, 1939, for the "Relief of German Christian Refugees;" Oct. 4, 1940, on the election of Wendell L. Willkie.

PROSKAUER, JULIAN JOSEPH, writer, b. New York city, 1893. He was the son of Joseph Proskauer and the grandson of Adolph Proskauer. Proskauer fol

Joseph M. Proskauer

lowed his father in the presidency of the William C. Popper printing firm, but also worked as a newspaper reporter and writer. He was the author of many short stories and of several humorous and advertising books. Proskauer was interested also in magic, served as chairman of the commission which continued the work started by Harry Houdini in exposing fake mediums, and was president of the Society of American Magicians in 1934 to 1935.

PROSSNITZ, LÖBELE, Sabbatian visionary and impostor, b. Brody, Galicia, at the end of the 17th cent.; d. in Hungary, about 1750. He lived in Prossnitz, Moravia-hence his surname-first in dire poverty as a peddler and then as a teacher. Suddenly he claimed to have received mysterious instructions from Isaac Luria and Sabbatai Zevi in a dream. His announcement of this dream and its message caused a sensation among the credulous Jews, and Prossnitz preached his gospel to the Jews of Moravia and Silesia.

He gradually surrounded himself with a small group of devoted followers whom he urged to practise selfcastigation in preparation, according to his prophecy, for the return of Sabbatai Zevi as the Messiah in 1706. Moreover, he laid claim to being a profound Cabalist, and by means of every kind of hocus-pocus pretended to perform miracles. He was at last unmasked at such a performance at which he pretended to "reveal the Shechinah" by means of tricks worked with fire. He was first excommunicated by Chief Rabbi David Oppenheim, and was then sentenced to a three-year pilgrimage. Upon his fervent pleadings he was permitted to return to Prossnitz, but shortly thereafter, following a visit allegedly paid him by the Sabbatian emissary Nehemiah Hayyun, he again began to proclaim himself the Messiah ben Joseph, signed his name "Joseph ben Jacob," and taught that God had surrendered His guidance of the world to the Messiah. Prossnitz was finally excommunicated for the second time (1725), on this occasion together with two other followers of Sabbatai Zevi; it is believed he died among non-Jews years later in the course of his wanderings in Hungary.

Lit.: Emden, Jacob, Torath Hakenaoth, 34, 71-72; Hagiz, Moses, Lehishath Saraf, introduction (reprinted in Emden's Torath Hakenaoth, 81-85); Kahana, David, Toledoth Hamekubbalim, Hashabbataim Vehahasidim, vol. 2 (1926-27) 168-75.

Marcel Proust

PROTECTION OF THE JEWS. As early as the time of the Carolingians, the Jews enjoyed a special protection from the king in return for the payment of special taxes. They needed such, because of their lack of rights as strangers and unbelievers. Originally such protection was given to individual Jews only; but after the Crusades, it became a general one in the form of the "Kammerknechtschaft." About the end of the Middle Ages, and in the early part of modern times, the older form of protection, which was to be purchased by individual Jews, reappeared. Most of the German cities expelled the Jews in the 15th cent., but they permitted some few Jews to remain in return for special taxes (thus Abraham of Leipzig in 1418, Baruch in Dresden in 1468). In the 17th cent., many princes accepted certain Jews into their territories in exchange for special taxes (for example, the Great Elector of Prussia and the Vienna exiles of 1671). This special tax was usually known as the Leibzoll (body tax).

The Jews so privileged were carefully distinguished from the Jews "without passports," who settled there little by little, despite the efforts of the government to prevent them. Sometimes, as in the Prussian regulation of 1750, they were divided into "ordinary" and "extraordinary" protected Jews. The former could transfer their right of residence to their children; the latter had only an untransferable right of residence which expired at their death. They could deal in all wares with the exception of a few articles, but, on the other hand, they were excluded from all handicrafts that were controlled by the guilds. Their children, with the exception of the first-born of the ordinary protected Jews, could obtain the right of residence only by making a large payment; often this was denied to them altogether, since the number of protected Jews was to be limited. The Jews "without passports" were considered to be burdensome immigrants; they could pursue no trade of their own, but could only be the servants and employees of protected Jews.

PROUST

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PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION, see ELDERS OF ZION, PROTOCOLS OF.

PROUST, MARCEL, writer, b. Paris, 1871; d. Paris, 1922. His father was a professor at the Faculty of Medicine, his mother was a Jewess whose maiden name had been Weill. Proust's devotion to his mother was as great as hers to him, and the asthma which manifested itself during his childhood and was to invalid him for life made the intensity of their relationship greater.

Proust's first books, Les plaisirs et les jours and Portraits de peintres, were published in 1896. In 1914 the first volume of what was to be his life work, À la recherche du temps perdu, appeared; it was translated into English as Remembrance of Things Past.

The work of Marcel Proust will remain, in the history of the French novel, a landmark as important as the works of Flaubert or Balzac. It is, by the quality of its style and by the subtlety of character analysis, in the tradition of the best French classical culture, but it could have been written only at the time of Bergson and Freud. In fact, Remembrance of Things Past is, to the history of the novel, what Matter and Memory is to the history of philosophy. What is the subject of the book? It would be a great mistake to answer: "It is the story of a nervous child, of his parents, of his loves for two girls: Gilberte and Albertine, of his friend SaintLoup, of the extravagant Charlus." The facts, in Proust's novel, are not important. What really matters is a certain way of remembering the past.

"There are," Proust says, "two kinds of memories. The first is voluntary or intellectual memory; we make use of it when we rebuild, consciously, a past event. The second is involuntary memory, a phenomenon that takes place when an actual sensation conjures up an image of the past." At the beginning of the book the hero dips a cake in lime-tea and, because when he was a child an old aunt of his, at Combray, used to give him the same cake and the same tea, suddenly all his childhood, and his aunt, and Combray, come back to him. Such is involuntary memory.

The past having been evoked, what does the hero see? He sees, in the center of the picture, his parents' house. On one side of the house is Swann's Way, which leads to the home of a neighbor, Mr. Swann, a friend of the hero's father. The other road is Guermantes' Way, which leads to Guermantes Castle, the seat of an old aristocratic family. Of the Guermantes, Marcel (the narrator) knows nothing, except legends; of Swann, he knows very little. All those characters, at the beginning of his life, are only names to him. Every life begins with the age of names. The whole book will be the slow discovery of what really lies behind the names.

Progressively, through chance encounters, Marcel gets to know better both the Swanns and the Guermantes and, much to his surprise, he finds that one never knows anybody. Temperaments are not definite objects you can appraise once for all. They change all the time. Human beings do not appear the same to different spectators. To Swann, who is in love with her, Odette, his

wife, is a precious and rare being; to others she is just a vulgar and uninteresting woman. “Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder." Thus Marcel understands the relativity of sentiments. When he is himself in love with Albertine, he realizes that he loves her, not because of what she really is, but because of what he does not know about her. Love is an illusion. Everything is an illusion.

"Life, as it flows, is so much time wasted and nothing can ever be recovered and truly possessed save under the aspect of eternity which is also the aspect of art." In the last volume of the novel (Time Recaptured), the hero discovers that art alone can give shape to a shapeless world and transform the fleeting illusions into things of eternal beauty, which was Flaubert's philosophy. One will also note the similarity between Proust's involuntary memory and Bergson's intuition. Both these admirably intelligent men were not of course antiintellectual, but both were convinced that there is in man something that goes deeper than intellect.

Such is the general outline of Proust's work. Yet its value is not only philosophical; it is literary and poetical. Of all French novelists he is the one who had understood best the lesson of English literature. Once, when he was asked who his masters were, he answered: "Dickens, George Eliot and Ruskin." From Dickens he got his humor. Some of his characters (the Verdurins, Charlus, Morel and many minor ones) were drawn in the Dickens manner. From George Eliot he received some of his ideas about time and the novel. From Ruskin he learned the art of describing, in long and beautiful sentences, minute details in nature.

But if he owes a great deal to English masters, he owes even more to his French masters, the great classical writers, and especially to Saint-Simon. Proust was himself a marvellous literary critic and he has written a penetrating article about the style of Flaubert. A similar study might be, and should be, written about his own style, his beautiful images, his slow and involved periods. There are French writers as great as Proust; none is greater. ANDRÉ MAUROIS.

Lit.: Cattaui, Georges, "Marcel Proust and the Jews," Jewish Review (1932), No. 3, pp. 66-75; Van Praag, Siegfried, "Marcel Proust," Revue de Genève, vol. 5 (1937) 33847, 388-93, 446-54; Rhodes, S. A., "Marcel Proust and His Jewish Characters," Sewanee Review, vol. 39 (1931) 144-57. PROVENCE, a maritime province of southeastern France, which, independent until 1481, was united with France in that year under Charles VIII. Documentary evidence as to the presence of Jews in Provence goes back to about 400 C.E.; they can be traced at Arles, Avignon and Marseille. On several occasions Jewish refugees from Spain and France found a haven in Provence. About the year 1160 Arles had 200 and Marseille 300 resident Jewish families; at the same period, the city of Carpentras, and from the 13th cent. on also Aix, Apt, Cadenet, Digne, Draguignan, Forcalquier, Lambèse, Manosque, St. Maximin, Martinique, Orange, Oraison, Orgon, Pertuis, Salon, Sisteron, Trets and Toulon are mentioned as places harboring Jews.

Provence frequently changed rulers; even the counts of Anjou (after 1245), who were also the kings of Naples, seldom visited the country; therefore the individual cities and regions of Provence followed various patterns of development, as did also the history of the Jews living in them. Jews are found to have been engaged in the most variegated occupations; they were active in the Mediterranean sea trade at Marseille, as owners of land estates (in 1341, 203 of them were owners of land estates at Arles), as public officials (up

to about 1300), as physicians and in money-lending. At Marseille, in the principality of Orange and in the feudal domain of Trets, the Jews had certain rights equal to those of the non-Jewish population up to about the 15th cent.

Compared to the north of France, the position of the Provence Jews was a favorable one; they were subjected to nothing like the expulsion of the Jews from the kingdom of France or like the burning of the Talmud at Paris in 1242. But they suffered from the synods of the church and from the Inquisition which, in the second half of the 13th cent., played a part in Provence. At the solicitation of Jewish delegates, Charles I, by an edict of March 26, 1276, delimited the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, but he, as well as his son, Charles II (1285-1309), repeatedly forbade the Jews to hold public offices (thus in 1294 and 1308); the Jews had to live in separate Jewish quarters.

The expulsion of the Jews from France, in 1306, reflected upon the Provence Jews. Robert of Calabria, as deputy of his father, decreed on May 6, 1306, that Jewish creditors should return the certificate of indebtedness to the non-Jewish debtor upon refund of part of the amount owing to them; on June 24, 1306, he forbade Jewish physicians to attend non-Jewish patients and non-Jews to employ the services of Jewish physicians. Regulations concerning the Jew badge (rouelle) were renewed; a distinction was made between Jewish and non-Jewish butcher shops. The bewildered Jews appealed to Charles II; on August 20, 1306, he issued the first general privilege in behalf of the Provence Jews: the decree of his son was cancelled; Jews everywhere were to pay reasonable taxes; at Orgon they were exempted from duty; for the writing of court briefs they were to pay no more than the usual fee; they were free to reside everywhere in the cities; Jewish physicians were permitted to attend non-Jewish patients after the latter had been confessed. The nonJewish owner was required to sign a new document of indebtedness to the Jewish creditor for the unpaid part of his debt.

In 1348 there was a persecution of the Jews in Provence, of which no details are known; as a consequence, Queen Jeanne ordered the tax of the Jews to remain at 2,000 livres. A massacre put an end to the small Jewish community of Toulon on April 13, 1348.

After the fashion of France prior to 1394, toward the end of the 14th cent. the counts of Provence created the office of Conservateur of the Jews of Provence. The Conservateur was called to watch over the privileges of the Jews, and he had authority over them in matters of common and criminal law. In addition to the fines, the Conservateur received a yearly allowance of 500 livres; in 1463 the son-in-law of King René himself became Conservateur. The jurisdiction of the Conservateur, however, encroached upon the rights of the prelates, barons and other lords; in the ensuing conflict the Parliament of Provence took a stand against the Conservateur. In spite of repeated protests, the royal edict of Aversa, dated November 26, 1424, definitely forbade the prelates and barons to intervene in the law suits of the Jews, and this edict remained in force until the expulsion of the Jews from Provence. The Jewish communities, constituting the Communauté générale des Juifs de Provence, held several assemblies whose business it was to raise the taxes demanded by the count of

Provence, for instance in the years 1276, 1419, 1420 and 1446, when the Jewish delegates had to apportion among the Provençal Jewish communities a tax of 2,545 livres for the king and 500 livres for the Conservateur. The statute of Queen Yolanda of May 27, 1423, granted the Provençal Jews individual liberty, safety and protection of their persons against malicious calumny and accusation (something of a "habeas corpus" act).

King René (1434-80), the most tolerant and benevolently inclined among all the protectors of the Jews, confirmed the edict of Queen Yolanda in 1443. In another statute, dated May 19, 1454, he conceded to the Jews permission to wear a badge of smaller size and none while traveling; they could practise as physicians, collect taxes and be free to pursue other occupations; they were to be unhampered in their business dealings with non-Jews, to be free to reside where they pleased, not to be forced to attend sermons in churches and sermons were to be supervised as a means of protecting the Jews. King René in many ways protected the Jews not only against the fanaticism of the masses, but also against the highhandedness of the lords and of Parliament. When, in 1475, preaching friars instigated a pogrom at Digne, he had his coat of arms affixed to the door of every house in which Jews lived and took a determined stand against enforced baptism. By the granting of delays he eased the tax burden of the various Jewish communities, and in 1478 he suppressed the general commission on usury.

The Jews were to pay dearly for these favors, but with his death the period favorable to the Jews of Provence came to an end. King René's nephew, Charles VI, in 1481, ceded Provence to France. From the years 1484 to 1485 on the Jews of Provence were subjected to persecution as a result of fanatical sermons preached against them. Acts of destruction and violence were committed at Arles, Aix, Tarascon and Marseille. The king of France forbade molesting the Jews of Provence (April 25, 1485), but complaints against Jews and their usury became ever more pressing; finally, in 1493, the Jews were expelled from Arles and, between July and September, 1500, also from the rest of Provence. Only at Avignon and in Venaissin County (from 1274 on papal dominions) did the Jews lead a precarious existence until the French Revolution, forming a cultural unit, however. In 1789 those territories had 2,500 Jews.

Culturally, Provence can not be separated from other regions of the south of France (such as Languedoc and Narbonne). It was the point where the Bible and Talmud studies of northern France met with the Jewish philosophy, science and poetry which flourished in Spain. Medicine and astronomy were eagerly cultivated. There were Jewish scholars in Aix, Arles, Marseille, Orange, Salon, Tarascon and in several other places. Judah al-Harizi (d. about 1230) called the songs of the poets of Provence "profound in meaning and forceful"; among them Eleazar, Joseph and Meshullam, the sons of Hanan ben Nathan Esobi, and especially Isaac ben Abraham Gorni, the Jewish satirist of Provence, were outstanding in the 13th cent. Best-known among philosophers born in Provence, also an astronomer and interpreter of the Bible, was Levi ben Gershom, born probably at Bagnols in 1288.

Part of the Jews exiled from Provence settled in the county of Venaissin, in Italy and at Salonika. Many

distinguished scholars in those regions preserved the name Provençal for a long time after.

In modern times, the history of the Jews of Provence was that of the Jews of France.

See also: AIX (en-Provence); Arles; Marseille. ADOLF KOBER.

Lit.: D'Agnel, Arnaud, La politique de René envers les juifs de Provence (1909); Barcillon de Mauvans, S. J., "Les Juifs de Provence," Annales des Alpes (1897-98); Bourilly, V. L., and Busquet, Raoul, La Provence du Moyen Age (1924); Busquet Raoul, Études sur l'ancienne Provence (1930) 114-31 177-200; Camau, Émile, La Provence à travers les siècles, vol. 4, Les juifs en Provence (1928); Crémieux, Adolphe, "Les Juifs de Toulon au moyenâge," Revue des études juives, vol. 89, pp. 33-72; vol. 90; "Documents relatifs aux juifs d'Arles," ibid., vol. 41 (1900) 62-97; vol. 47 (1903) 231-32; ibid., index to vols. 1 to 50 (1910) 300, under Provence; Gross Henri, Gallia Judaica (1897), 3, 18 et seq., 248 et seq., 489-93, 634, 653 et seq.; Gérin-Ricard, H., Traitement d'égalité et protection accordés aux Juifs par les seigneurs de Trets aux xiv et xv siècles (1920); Kahn, Salomon, "Les Juifs de Tarascon au moyen-âge," Revue des études juives, vol. 39 (1899) 95-112, 261-98; Mosse, Armand, Histoire des juifs d'Aragon et du Comtat Venaissin (1934); Zunz, Leopold, "Die jüdischen Dichter der Provence," Zur Geschichte und Literatur, vol. I (1845) 459-83.

PROVERBS. 1. Biblical. Ancient Israel, a people that set great store on clever sayings, wit and jest, naturally had many proverbs. It is characteristic that the same word (mashal) is used for comparison and jest alike. The proverbs that have been preserved in the Bible include: "Out of the wicked cometh forth wickedness" (1 Sam. 24:14); "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge" (Jer. 31:29; Ezek. 18:2); "As the mother, so her daughter" (Ezek. 16:44); "The days are prolonged, and every vision faileth" (Ezek. 12:22); "Woe unto him that increaseth that which is not his; how long?" (Hab. 2:6). Similar to these are the proverbial sayings, such as "Is Saul also among the prophets?" (1 Sam. 10:12; 19:24) and "ploughing with another's heifer" (Judges 14:18). There are numerous artistic proverbs in the Wisdom Literature, especially in Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach. Many of the proverbial expressions in the Bible have become a fixed part of the literary vocabulary of all languages.

See also: PHRASES, BIBLICAL; PROVERBS (book). 2. Talmudic. The number of proverbs in Talmudic literature is also large. Some of these are popular sayings which the Talmudic teachers quote to serve their own purposes; some are the sayings of famous sages which acquired a subsequent entrance into popular speech because of their wit and brevity. B.K. 92ab contains a list of popular sayings which the Talmudic teachers cite and offer as parallels to similar proverbs in the Bible and the Mishnah. Thus the popular saying, "Do not throw dirt into the well from which you have drunk," is made parallel to Deut. 23:8, "Despise not the Egyptian, for thou wast a sojourner in his land.” A proverb, "Poverty presses hard on the poor," is used to explain a passage in the Mishnah (Bik. 3:8): "The rich used to bring their first-fruits in bowls of silver and gold; the poor in baskets of peeled willow. The valuable bowls were returned to their owners, but the baskets were kept by the priests." Other popular proverbs that are quoted include: "Tobi does wrong and Sigud gets the punishment" (Pes. 113b); "Not the mouse but the hole is the real thief" (Git. 45a); "Myrtle is still myrtle even when it grows among thorns" (Sanh. 44a); (We desire) "neither its honey nor its sting" (Tanhuma to Num. 22:12); "When you enter a city, follow its customs" (Midrash Gen. 18:8).

The proverbs of the sages include such sayings as that of Hillel, "What thy own soul hateth, do not to thy neighbor" (Sab. 31a); “Love work, hate office" (Aboth 1:10); "If not now, when?" (Aboth 1:14); "Trust not thyself until the day of thy death" (2:5); "Judge not another man until thou art in his place" (ibid.); "Envy, passion and misanthropy take a man away from the world (cause him to die prematurely)” (2:13); "The day is short, the work is great, the workmen are lazy, the reward is great, and the owner of the house is urgent" (2:17); "Render unto Him that which is His, for thou and all thou hast are His" (3:8); "Whom his fellowmen do not desire, God does not desire" (3:13); "Silence is the fence of wisdom" (3:17); "Who is wise? He who learns from everyone. Who is a hero? He that controls his passions. Who is rich? He who is happy in his lot. Who is honored? He who honors others" (4:1); "Rather be the tail of lions than the head of foxes" (4:20); “Look not at the bottle but its contents" (4:27); “A man is judged by three things; his purse, his drinking cup and his anger" (kiso, koso, ka'aso; Erub. 65b).

Talmudic teachers frequently apply such proverbs to the uses of daily life, even changing their application to give them an ethical interpretation. Thus the priestly rule that whatever is joined to an unclean thing is unclean (Kelim 12:2) is applied to purity in ethical EDUARD BANETH.

matters.

3. Post-Talmudic. Post-Talmudic literature contains many proverbs, especially the Arabic literature of the Jews. Some of these proverbs are scattered in the writings of the great poets of this period, while others appear in great collections. There are comparatively few of these proverbs that seem to have arisen from the people; the majority are based on thought and observations and are intended for didactic purposes. The works intended for such moral instruction include the following, with sample proverbs:

Judah al-Harizi, Tahkemoni: Repentance is to sinners like medicine to the sick.

The way is often but short between rise and fall. Abraham ibn Hasdai, Ben Hamelech Vehanazir: If nobility does not speak from you yourself, a thousand ancestors are of no avail.

Shemtob ben Joseph Falaquera, Tzeri Hayagon.
Honcin ben Isaac, Musere Hapilosofim.
Solomon ibn Gabirol, Mibhar Hapeninim: To triumph
through unrighteousness is to be defeated.
Jedaiah Bedaresi, Behinath Olam.

Moral and ethical books are also a good source for such maxims, which give in brief and convenient form an ethical principle or a rule of experience. Such works

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stamp of Jewish thoughts and feelings, Jewish views of the world and of life, and are steeped in Jewish wit and humor. The proverbs current among East European Jews could be used to define the general views of the Jews on the most important problems of life and the world.

It was not until the late 19th and early 20th cent. that an attempt was made to create a systematic collection and arrangement of the proverbs of the East European Jews. The most comprehensive collection is that of Ignaz Bernstein, aided by Benjamin W. Segel, Jüdische Sprichwörter und Redensarten (Frankfort, 1908); it contains nearly 4,000 proverbs, given in Yiddish in Hebrew letters and with a transcription into Roman script. This is only a fragment of the entire mass of East European proverbs. A characteristic feature is the intense and courageous trust in God and love for God. The proverbs philosophize, laugh and weep about every object in life and in numerous forms. Thus in the above-mentioned book about fifty columns each are devoted to the subjects Man, Woman, Money, Poverty, and Dog, and more than seventy to Jew. Numerous proverbs deal with Jewish months and festivals, prayers and weekly Scriptural portions, as well as Biblical and Talmudic figures and concepts. It is noteworthy that the proverbs which speak about women contain no references to faithlessness or fickleness.

BENJAMIN W. Segel. Lit.: Waxman, Meyer, A History of Jewish Literature; idem, Mishle Yisrael (1933); Davidson, Israel, in YivoBleter, vol. 13 (1938) 354-72; Elzet, J., ibid., vol. 14 (1939) 170-71; Bialik, C. N., and Rabnitsky, J. H., Sefer Haagadah; Karpeles, Zionsharfe (1889); Weinberg, M., Ewige Weisheit; Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 10, pp. 226-29.

PROVERBS, BOOK OF, the second book of the Hagiographa (Kethubim), or third section of the Bible, belonging to the Wisdom (Hochmah) Literature, which includes also Psalms and Job. Ascribed to Solomon by the superscriptions in the first and twenty-fifth chapters, the book is a collection of aphorisms and wise sayings about the moral and religious way of life. Proverbs is primarily concerned not with prophetic or legalistic Judaism, but rather with the sages of postExilic times and with wisdom, frequently personified. Like Psalms, Proverbs is a "collection of collections," most of which are provided with titles.

The text itself indicates the following divisions: A. Discourses on the conduct of life (chaps. 1 to 9), including a general title on the book's purpose of teaching wisdom (1:1-6); and a lengthy discourse of father (teacher) to son (pupil) on the theme that "fear of the Lord" is the essence of wisdom (1:7 to 9:18). There are warnings against immoral women (5 to 7), admonitions against certain social faults (6:1-19), a description of wisdom as a guide for life and an aid to the creation of the world (8), and a contrast between wisdom and folly (9). Prov. 6:1-19 and 9:7-12 are out of place. B. A book of "the proverbs of Solomon," consisting of poetic couplets, totalling 375 verses (10:1 to 22:16). C. A collection of "words of the wise" (22:17 to 24:22), consisting of an introduction (22:17-21) and then thirty (22:20 should read, "Have I not written for you thirty sayings, etc.") couplets, based on an Egyptian book, "The Wisdom of Amen-en-ope" (1000600 B.C.E.). Like its Egyptian predecessor, the collection gives practical advice for prospective public officials, sound moral counsel, the virtues of wisdom, and admonitions against adultery, intemperance, envy, and

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