4u12 1918 UNIV. OF MICH. BULLETIN OF THE RAR NEW YORK.PUBLIC LIBRARY ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS BULLETIN OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS VOLUME 22 JULY 1918 NUMBER 7 JEWISH DREAMERS IN THE PUBLIC LIBRARIES BY RUEBEN BRAININ N 42nd Street and 5th Avenue you can meet and study the most remarkable types of Jewish idealists, dreamers and visionaries. They are men of whom the wide Jewish world knows very little, and the Christian world knows nothing. They were never depicted in the stories and sketches from New York Jewish life, although they are the most interesting and the most remarkable in our midst. These are the dreamers of the Ghetto, which even Israel Zangwill never described and never characterized. I say that you will meet and study them in the great public library. It is not, however, easy to make their acquaintance, for these book people -book gluttons - have withdrawn into an inner world. They scrupulously hide from the outer world their idealism, their dreams and visions. They guard themselves against coming in direct contact with the street and its coarse realities. Their entire life is a living protest against materialism, against the dollar cult. You have to spend time to gain their confidence. When they enter into conversation with you they talk no idle gossip. They will debate on things that matter; on philosophy, on the far future of mankind, on the still unborn art, and on the literature that is to be. I know many of the zealous visitors of the public library, some of them quite young men, others middle aged, and yet others old men — but they have all young souls and childish, naive hearts. A good many of 33722 |