Our New York Letter

The Australian Jewish Herald, February 26, 1925.

The fact that the crossword puzzle, which requires at least a fair knowledge of spelling and something approaching an average intelligence, became so popular is in itself a great puzzle which could be explained only by the wizards of American newspaperdom. This puzzle is particularly difficult of solution when one remembers the result of the intelligence tests during the War.

Those who look at every matter for its Jewish angle were not disappointed also in the crossword puzzle problem, which, thanks to the epidemic nature of the puzzle, crossed the ocean, where it was discovered that the crossword puzzle was originally a Jewish invention made by none other than our old acquaintance, Abraham Ibn Ezra, poet, astrologist, world trotter and epigramist.

However, here there is another puzzle which awaits solution. Why it was necessary for the crossword puzzle to travel across the ocean to find its Hebrew origin is really difficult to explain. Why America, with its great number of rabbis, Jewish journalists, scholars, having among its treasures the best Jewish libraries and manuscripts, could not find the Hebrew origin of the [crossword] puzzle is to be wondered at.

A superficial knowledge of medieval Hebrew literature, nay, even a knowledge only of the prayer book for the High Holidays, would indicate that the form of crossword puzzling was quite familiar in Hebrew literature and liturgy.

As a matter of fact, the majority of the special hymns and songs for the principal holidays have a crossword puzzle, at least one way down. The first letter of every line is always to be connected with the following letter from the beginning to the end of the song or hymn, and preserves a complete record of the name, surname and city of the author. The main evidence for the existence of the first Hebrew Paiton, Eliezer Ha-Kalir, was preserved chiefly through this cross-wording of his few and beautiful hymns.

In fact, most of the Hebrew poetry written in Spain during the Hispano-Jewish Golden Epoch was based, similarly to the Arabic poetry of that time, not so much on rhythm as on the number of letters contained in the verse, coupled with cross-wording at the beginning of the line. The Cabalistic literature developed subsequently had a particular fondness for the playing with words, and it claimed that the entire universe was merely the result of a combination of certain letters. The playing with letters went so far that the belief was held that with certain new combination of letters, [whole] worlds – spiritual and material – could be made and destroyed. Many a letter-enthusiast, it is reported, fasted for years in order to be privileged to learn some mysterious combination of 72 letters expressing the name of the Omnipotent Power.

The Notarikon (the Hebrew development of the Latin “Notaricum”) and the Gematrioth were another, much earlier and much more serious manifestation of the crossword fad.

It does not, however, seem too safe to go into the history of cross-wording and letter puzzles, as is evidenced by the fact that the brilliant crossword puzzles of the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries were not altogether appreciated even in the prayer books, and it took some scholar from overseas to bring to the attention of American Jews the Hebrew origin of the almighty Crossword Puzzle.

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Lord Robert Cecil, British statesman, champion of the League of Nations idea, winner of the Wilson Peace Prize of 25,000 dollars, in an address at the Hotel Astor, relating the achievements of the League of Nations, credited it with the securing of rights for national minorities in Eastern Europe. That the protection of the rights of minorities should be taken into consideration and cared for after the conclusion of a war is not a new international practice. The latest precedent which existed before the War in this regard was Article 44 of the Treaty with Romania signed at the Berlin Congress. In this Article, Romania had pledged itself to secure citizenship rights to its Jewish population, but it never fulfilled its pledge.

The commonly called “national minority treaties,” in the actual text of the supplement to the Versailles Peace Treaty, speaking of the national minorities in the various countries, resorted rather to a long term. In the treaties, the national minorities are described as “religious, language, and cultural minorities,” [which is] rather a vague and diplomatic term for such a burning question as the national-minorities-question represents in the various countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

In this regard, the League of Nations has really an achievement to its credit. As to the execution of rights, it seems that it has not gone any further than the Berlin Congress. The situation of the Ruthenian-Lithuanian minority in Poland, and the discrimination “enjoyed” by the Jewish minorities in Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania is, just because of this achievement, a constant challenge to the League of Nations.