Der Orden Bne Briss (German)
1933
Eigener Verlag der Grossloge, 1921-1936, Berlin
From the Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica

The B’nai Brith is the largest and oldest Jewish fraternal organization. Founded in New York in 1843, it grew in the early 20th century into an international organization with over 330 lodges and 10 grand lodges, distributed over the United States, Germany, Rumania, Austria-Hungary, Egypt, and Palestine. It was founded to unite Jews on a platform free from dogma and ceremonial custom; political and religious discussions were eschewed and morality, charity and brotherly love were promulgated as the highest virtues. Grand lodge, no. 8, was instituted in Berlin, Germany in 1882. The Orden Bne Briss periodical is held in less than 20 institutions world-wide. This particular issue is dedicated to the theme Wanderung und Aufbau: Die äussere und innere Haltung der Jüden nach den grossen Katastrophe der jüdischen Geschicte (lit. trans. migration and development: internal and external attitudes following the great catastrophe of Jewish history). Nine articles written by leading Jewish scholars explore this theme, including an article by the major Jewish historian, Simon Dubnow on the transformation of the Jewish people into a spiritual nation, an article by the founder of Jewish Polish historiography, Meir Balaban on German Jews in Poland, and an article by the Bulgarian Jewish intellectual, Dr. Saul Mezan on the Jews in the Balkan States. All three were killed during the Second World War: Dubnow, who just two months before this article was published had moved to Riga to escape Nazi Germany, died in the Riga Ghetto; Balaban was murdered in the Warsaw Ghetto, and Mezan was killed while fighting as a Jewish partisan in Albania.