In the course of the last two weeks the Jews of America have lost two great men who have, for a couple of decades, brought laughter to Jews; one through his acting on the stage, the other through his playing with words, through his epigrams and witticism. But whereas the people have accompanied by the thousands the stage player to his everlasting peace, they have left their word artist to a narrow circle of close adherents and friends.

And yet, this is no evidence that the people love their theatre more than their literature. It is sufficient to mention the magnitude of an audience that come to hear a poet or author, let alone speak of the kingly funerals with which the people honored Shamar for his novels and Gordin for his dramas.

The difference in the Jewish people's attitude toward the funerals of the two great men lay in the fact that one was a child of his time, spoke the mother language of his people, while the other spoke to a vanishing generation (Hebrew-speaking Jews) and wrote in the language of scholars and savants..

And whereas Maguleskoe (a Jewish actor) was known in every Jewish working-man's home, where the majority of the Jewish people in America acquire an education, Gershon Rosenzweig was only known to the scholars and savants of the old generation.

The Hebrew language is not to be blamed for this. Breinen and Sokolow were exclusively known to us as Hebrew writers, and yet the people always honored them highly. Those who read only Jewish envy those who understand and read in the original Hebrew the works of these and all the other modern Hebrew writers, from Frishman and Bordichevski to Chernichowski and Bialik.

According to his writings, Gershon Rosenzweig adhered to the old generation. His molten image of America and his variety of proverbs and epigrams put him in juxtaposition with the great scholars of 50 or 100 years ago.

The old generation, however, is not wont to honor their Hebrew writers. They look upon them as upon the writers who used to seek customers for their writings. Woe unto the Hebrew writer who depends upon that class of readers. His lot is one of privation and suffering when alive and inadequate recognition after death.