fistericam palish Periodical Cotter f CLIFTON AVENUE - CINCINNATI 20, OHIO Friday, January 11, 1946 e DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and The Legal Chronicle ]LAIN TALK (Continued from page 4) ••• Speakers' Table the child a pleasant contact with Hebrew. What educator inflicts laborious memory work on a small youngster? I used the rhymes with great success in my kindergarten. The children loved them, and parents asked for copies. Dr. Eisenberg, who is now the director of Jewish education in Philadelphia, and who was then the director in Cleveland, recognized them as having educational value, and put them in mimeographed form. In this form they were made available to teachers throughout the country. After four editions, Bloch's took it up, and made it into an attractive book. In the review by Elma Erlich Levinger (outstanding author and educator) she says, Your Mr. Segal recently ascended to the speakers' table in Israel. This is mentioned here not in vainglory but only in the mood of a reporter giving out the new s. There he sat high above all Israel, looking for all the world like a white-breasted blackbird (in his tuxedo) in a long row of other white-breasted blackbirds. His underprivileged wife looked at him worshipfully from the lower level of the banquet hall where she was made to sit and gave her mind to invidious comparisons. How much more at ease her husband looked in his high place than some of the other blackbirds! He was like one to the manor born. Dignity sat like a crown on him. Yes, it had taken him a long time to get there. She thought that his case just went to prove that a good man can't be kept down too long. There were all the years when he sat at the feet of the big- shots at all the banquets. Now, Israel was sitting at his feet, you might say. It was a big Jewish occasion in our town amid the glitter of the Hall of Mirrors in our best hotel. Segal's friends twitted him about it. They recalled columns of his in which he had made envious light of gentlemen who sit at speakers' tables and now he was there among them. His friends winked ironically at him from their lowly places in the banquet hall and Segal replied by throwing out his chest and looking like a stuffed shirt, indeed. Segal himself was not unaware of the stately spot he had attained in Israel. Now he had become a man of important dignity who, by reason of that, couldn't let himself go so far as to pull anybody's nose anymore in his columnar way. He must watch his step. After this, as one who had been allowed to ascend to the speakers' table, he must say only the becoming things that people like to hear or read about themselves. He had been a kind of playboy in his col- umn who liked to step on toes and tweak noses. No, no, Segal, nothing more of that. You must reform and con- form. A man who has risen to the speakers' table in Israel must guard his new status; he must learn to say nothing in particular beautifully. He must offend no one, keeping in mind that thz one he offends may be just the one who might have made a sizeable contribution to something or other. 1 Yet Segal, even in this moment of being high in Israel, couldn't break himself of his old columnar habits. If you are a columnist you are always thinking of what may make a column for you in next w eek's issue. The columnar weeks just crowd one on another. Segal had no speech to give at the speakers' table; he was just one of the decorative pieces there. So he had plenty of time to meditate on the matter of his next column in relation to his new elevation. He applied his mind to the question: What does a man high up at the speakers' table think about? Well, Segal was thinking he would like to be away somewhere playing rummy. Over there, down below, sat his old rummy partner looking awfully uncomfortable and wondering why he ever let himself in for this. S He was noticeably ill at ease as the steenth speaker arose and his troubled countenance suggested the question: Why do there have to be so many talkers in Israel? Rummy games are so much nicer; nobody talks much. People just sit around, and for once Israel isn't talking. Israel has no problem except how to schneider. Segal's mind wandered around the banquet hall: That's a fine- looking woman over there! But that other one at the same table! Why does she have to make up like that? Can't women ever be made to understand the lovely significance of wrinkles? Wrinkles are the beautiful record of experience and character and why does she have to plaster her face to hide them? Segal would like to tell her. The next moment, though, he became conscious again of his new dignity at the speakers' table, and what would people say if they could discover that he was giving his mind to such trivia as women's faces? The countenance of a man at the speakers' table should have a look of deep absorption in the affairs of Israel. People should feel that at the speakers' table, anyway, sit men who can be trusted with all the problems. A man at the speakers' table should bear a reasonable facsimile of profound wisdom and what would the public think of its leaders if it knew that from high position Segal's mind was pondering upon women? Segal snapped out of this for a moment. He cupped his chin in his hand and took on the solemnity of the other thinkers at the long table. Now his wife could feel certain that here was a man in whom Israel could have faith; he looked the part of a phophet, as prophetic as any of them, you might say. But soon Segal again was forgetting his position and his part. He was looking at Zilch down there at the right. Zilch, too, used to be a big man in Israel. Zilch for chairman of the Committee on Saving Israel for Torah. Zilch for chairman of the Committee to Raise Money for This and That. Zilch for chairman of the Committee to Get Rid of the Mortgage. Zilch was at all the speakers' tables. All that was in the time when stories of fabulous fortune were being told about Zilch; he was one of the bigger men of Israel until adversity overtook him in the depression. Now Zilch was S itting down below and this Segal was sitting high, looking down, though Zilch remains the same fine gentleman he used to be. Contemplating Zilch, Segal could feel humble and his starched front subsided. Yes, he mused, what goes up may come down and the time may come when you, too, Segal, will be kicked in the pants. It seems he will have to keep on being a columnist instead of a dignitary. He can't be reformed even by the respectable environment of a speakers' table. He will probably continue to tweak noses and step on toes. JOSEPH LATTIN Certified Public Accountant Announces his Return from Active Duty pith the United States Army To Resume Practice At 1404 Dime Building Telephone 26, Mich. Telephone RAndloph 1416 •0, Memorial Meeting To Honor Reverend Mogul] Author's Comments On Book Review By AL SEGAL 4 Page Thirteen "Here we have a child-like simplicity, and a musical swing which children love. Its material deals with his own experiences told in lines easily memorized and pantomimed. And for good measure, the youngster painlessly learns a few Hebrew words." This is no defense of my work. Mr. Saunders has every right not to like it. However, please tell him this: REV. SAMUEL MOGILL A Memorial Meeting will be held in honor of the late Rever- end Samuel Mogill on Monday, Jan. 14, at 8:30 p.m., at the Con- gregation Emmanuel, Taylor cor- ner of Woodrow Wilson, under the auspices of the Yidishe Folks Verein with the participation of the Cantors' Association and the Halevy Singing Society. Prominent Rabbis will dwell upon the late Cantor's activities. Reverend Samuel Mogill served the community for twenty-six years. He had been Cantor of many leading congregations of the city, and had been president of the Jewish Ministers Cantors' Association for the last four years. He is mourned by thousands of friends he had made during his lifetime in this city. A large at- tendance is anticipated. Isaac Franck Reviews Book at SZ Brunch A child may not like to eat fish, but nevertheless he likes to re- peat a verse about buying it for Sabbath. He may not like to work, but he enjoys the verse about Jack polishing the candlestick for the' same reason that he likes the traditional rhyme which reads "This is the way we wash our clothes, etc.," which is followed by ironing the clothes and scrubbing the floor; As for the verse about "Sheleg," please inform him that the children enjoy this in pantomime to such an extent, that the repetition requests take too much time from other plays in the curriculum. I was glad to note that Mr. Saunders is so ardent a Zionist, that he wants to cram all there is to know about Palestine into a little four or five (Ed. bold ours) year old head. Does he not know that the approach must be made subtly through that which captivates his interest and imagination. It is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. If Mr. Saunders would have taken the trouble to look, he would have found other verses which tell of planting trees, orange trees, and chalutzim at work. What is wrong with Mr. Saunders vision? He says, "It does not say so, but it seems to be Purim." Please tell him to look again, and to note that there are a number of verses under the distinct caption "PURIM!" Also, there is not a child who would associate the Jack and Jill verse with inebriation. Yes, a child's imagination can carry him up the hill to borrow some charoses. Mr. S. may call it a bit of clever remark, but he forgets that he is giving a book review. I would not have taken the trouble to write this letter if it were not for the fact that I am outraged at his personal references. I do not like It, and must add a few remarks about same. He refers to a Mr. Feinberg. • In the first place, let me inform him, that I have never had the pleasure of meeting him. He just happened to have sent in a few rhymes to the Bureau at the time when mine were being mimeo- graphed. When it went into book form, they were included with his permission. Secondly, his title is not Mr. In the third place, he is not jobless, for at the present time he is the esteemed Rabbi Louis Feinberg of Cincinnati, highly respected by his congregation and colleagues. Is Mr. Saunders' face red? Is this type of writing a credit to your paper? Another thing, Mr. Saunders misquotes my verses to which I object strenuously. When he quotes, every letter must be exact. This is particularly true in verse, where every syllable affects the meter. There is a difference between his quote "Little Jack Homer has to sit in a corner" He took out some mohn from his Haman Tash And said, what a good boy I am, by gosh!" and the correct lines, which are, Little Jack Horner Sat in a corner, Eating a Haman Tash. He put in his thumb, And took out some mohn, And said, "I'm a good boy, by gosh." An open apology is certainly due Rabbi F'einberg and myself. Another thing, what does he mean by his sarcastic reference to "art work?" This may give a wrong impression of the Illustrations, which are delightful. ISAAC FRANCK The third brunch book review in Shaarey Zedek Sisterhood's current series takes place this Tuesday, Jan. 15, at 12:30. Rabbi Milton Steinberg's book, "A Par- tisan Guide to the Jewish Prob- lem," will be reviewed by Mr. Isaac Franck, Executive Director of the Jewish Community Coun- cil of Detroit. The program has been planned by Mrs. Walter Field and Miss Hattie Gittleman. Mrs. Samuel Singer, general chairman, states that a few tick- ets for individual brunch book reviews are available, and can be obtained at the door. Arrange- ments for this brunch are in charge of Mrs. B. H. Rosenberg and Mrs. Max Fertel. •atway.4-5MAR T alzerup- DURABLE Cifevay4-COMFORTABLE alway4THE BEST Tailored to the Individual Car The Crest Company * 5756 CASS AVE. * MA. 2747 * NEAR PALMER And in the last paragraph, I was taken completely by surprise to read that he commends the book as worthwhile and attractive. What a paradox! I shall await your answer. Very truly yours, (Signed) SARAH G. LEVY 12321 Phillips Ave., Cleveland 8, Ohio. Book Review (Continued from page 5) The acute indignation Miss Levy displays in her letter does not fool us a bit. To us it savours a bit of insincerity and the acrimony with which she demonstrates her resentment makes her arguments strained. My attesting to the general value of the book did not really dis- please her and my apparent inconsistency would be forgiven by an author less sensitive. Miss Levy must be familiar with Schopenhauer's admonition in hit famous essay "On the art of argument" in which he advises to impete to the opponent an idea or words which he never thought of. Miss Levy being convinced that I am an ardent Zionist charges me with the cruel and heartless desire to "cramp all there is to know into the little heads of 4 or 5 year olds." Now we know for whom the book was written, because that was our contention and that is what we objected to: viz.: that 4 or 5 years old children's heads should not be cramped with Hebrew words which have no meaning to them and which do not fit. The mixture of Eng- lish with Hebrew is a dissonance and a natural discord. It reminds me of the high-fallutin' sermons in English to a congregation which scarcely understands the language. I wish to assure the author that I never wanted to be hypercritical. I have been only doing my duty in my humble way as a reviewer. And it does not lie within my duty and it is not in accordance with my natural disposition to discourage authors, as though that were possible. I am no Zoilus, the "Homer's Scourge" as Miss Levy wishes to make me appear. If I have inadvertently offended Rabbi Feinberg of Cincin- atti by assuming he was an "unemployed relative" of the author, I sincerely apologize to the reverend gentleman. Of course, I am not writing this in compliance with Miss Levy's ultimatum to "apolozige." My duty is towards the reading public and to my reviewer's conscience, and as Pope expressed It: 'Tis with our judgments as our watches None go just alike, yet each believes his own. As to Miss Levy, we hope her next work will be as piquant as Crebillon's tales, full of emotions and tender as Petrarch's sonnets, adventurous as Lesage's picturesque romances and poetic as Dante. All I can say to the charming author of Mother Goose Rhymes is "Feel quod potui faciant meliora potentes."