American Jewish Periodical

Thursday, September 7, 950

DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE

l'age 32

Via Translation
Possibly Survive in the Diaspora.

Can a Judais

►

Rg, SOLOMON GRAYZEL
Editor .f The Jewish Publication Society of America

HE CRUCIAL ISSUE FACING the Jews of America can no longer be avoided. The
T ations.
urge to national self-realization in Zion made it seem secondary for the past two gener-
The existence of a cultural fountainhead in Europe appeared to mitigate its urgency.

Neither of these substitutes for a solution will operate from now on, and the Jews of America
will have to decide almost at once in what form and fashion diaspora Judaism is to survive.

The establishment of the State -
In brief, without Hebrew as a
of Israel has already in fact
brought the question to the fore functioning second language
whether a diaspora Judaism can there can be no future for Ameri-
su. ive at all unless it remains can Judaism.
thoroughly Israel-centered. This
The arguments in support of
is for us a vast problem, involv- this point of view are numerous
ing, if precedent is to play any and cogent, especially those which
part in its discussion, an exam- draw upon Jewish experience in
ination of the entire long and many communities of the past.
many-sided history of our people. Alexandrian Jewry is the out-
One aspect of it, however, the standing example.
linguistic one, is especially press-
Populous and cultured though
ing, since voices have already it was at the beginning of the
been raised both in Israel and Christian era, it -disappeared and,
here expressing doubts that a moreover, left little of Jewish
Judaism in translation is possible. value behind. The reason given
If an American Judaism would for this double failure is that the
survive, it is argued, now that the Jews of Alexandria lived on a
sources of culture in Europe have translated Judaism.
dried up, we can do so only by
They failed to keep in close
attaching our cultural activity to touch with the vibrant Jewish
the Hebraic sources of the past life in the homeland. What is
and to the stimulation to be re- more, the Greek language which
ceived from Israel in the future that community used and the
Greek culture upon which its
spirit fed were incapable of
transmitting Jewish Nth and
thought.
In fact, they muddled and mis-
directed the mind of the Jewish
people. Unacquainted with Jew-
ish teaching in its purity, they
fell victim to the Christian
MORRIS BEDDING
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• • •
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THERE HAVE BEEN other
VI. 2-1010
communities that failed of sur-
vival largely because of the

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same linguistic lack. The Chinese
Jews lived as long as they could
consult the Bible in the original.
The Falashas of Abyssinia re-
tained only a most primitive
form of Judaism because of lack
of contact with Palestine and
Babylonia.
In modern times, too, there is a
suspicious correlation between
the degree of Hebraic knowledge
and the extent of assimilation in
several countries of Western
Europe.
German Aufklaerung (enlight-
ment), for example, beginning
with Mendelssohn, developed a
translated Judaism and, there-
fore, an exceedingly weak one
which would soon have disap-
peared in any case, even without
Hitler's exterinmating fury.
The East European Haskalah
(also enlightenment), on
• the
other hand, though equally con-
scious of the currents of the day,
based itself on the Hebrew
language and culture. It not only
survived, but fed other com-
munities and laid the foundation
for an Israel reborn.
It was bound to be so, the ad-
vocates of Hebraism maintain,
because a language is not only an
instrument of communication, but
also the repository of a people's
experience and idealism. Trans-
lation is not merely the trans-
ference of verbal meanings from
one language into another, but
rather of symbols of thought and
experience.
A good translator deals with
CI cultures, not with words. Con-
sider the Bible. No literary
monument has had as much and
as careful translation as the
1 Bible. The results are superb

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• • •

THE ABOVE IS substantially
the argument offered by the pro-
tagonists of Hebraic culture, who
prophesy doom for our Jewish
community unless its present em-
phasis is changed.
If they are right, the days of
the American Jewish community
are numbered. We have at most
a generation or two before we
are absorbed by the Christian
population of the country and
remain a memory, an example
and a warning.
But is their analysis quite cor-
rect? Granting all they say
about Hebrew, does Jewish ex-
perience make the universal use
of that language of such trans-
cendent importance for survival?
Turning to the historical ex-
amples, we find that a number of
other factors were operative.
In the case of the Jewish com-
munity of Alexandria, one could
easily reverse the accusation and
lay the fault. to the Rabbis of
Palestine in ancient days, who
might have made greater efforts
to keep in touch with the cul-
tural problems of the Graeco-
Roman diaspora.
Some centuries later the weak-
nesses of the Septuagint as a
translation having become ap-
parent, Rabbi Akiba inspired an-
other translation, closer to the
spirit of the Hebrew text and
current Jewish interpretation.
But this one proved inadequate
in another direction; besides, it
was then already too late.
This failure of Palestine to in-
terpret its viewpoint earlier and
in sufficient measure is easy to
understand: the Palestinian Jews
of that day so abhorred greedy,
militaristic, hard-hearted Rome
and the superficial, lewd, poly-
theistic culture of the Hellenist
population that they turned their
backs entirely upon the West.
The messengers which the
academies began to send to the
diaspora after the destruction of
the Jewish state were unable to

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examples of literary art in any
number of languages. Yet one
who knows the Bible in the orig-
inal remains unsatisfied.
Its strength and flavor are miss-
ing, because the milieu cannot
be reproduced, nor the experi-
ence out of which the imagery
and the very expressions
evolved.
There are commentaries by the
hundreds; but, while they aid the
intelligence, they are deadly to
spirit and inspiration. Jewish
experience produced the Bible,
and then the Bible,_in its orig-
inal language, molded the Jewish
soul and laid the foundation for
its view of the world.
To read the Bible in transla-
tion is to visit a foreign land;
vague resemblances strike you,
only to sharpend the nostalgia
for home.

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cope with the situation. Per-
haps they understood diaspora
life too little; perhaps their
major interest was in the gather-
ing of funds for the struggling
Palestinian institutions.
In any event, it was left to
the Hellenized Jews to intepret
Judaism, and these were not suf-
ficiently well equipped to meet
the challenge.
• • •
MODERN ISRAEL may — in
fact, it must—profit from these
mistakes. Its cultural interests
are and will remain rooted in the
West. Its cultural and religious
propaganda must be tactful, that
is, show an awareness of the
fact that Jewish life in the dia•
spora cannot be a pale imitation
of cultural and religion in Tel
Aviv or in Mea Shearim.
A realistic appraisal of our
situation would thus demand a
dual approach. On one hand, we
must exert ourselves to develop
a group of men and women fully
equipped to handle the sources of
Jewish life.
It must be a group of substan-
tial size, so that its members
should not be considered excep-
tional and therefore queer, and
they must be granted a place of
prominence in the American com-
munity.
It would be unfortunate (if a
parenthetical remark is per-
mitted) if all of them were
Rabbis, since that would limit
the approach to Jewish culture.
Community schools, all-day
schools, all-day schools and con-
gregational schools will have to
gear themselves to the fulfillment
of this need.
On the other hand, it is neces-
sary to begin at once to train the
vast majority of the American
Jewish public to an active appre-
ciation of—not merely a vague
sympathy for—Jewish culture in
translation, interpretation, or
both. All Jewish classics mast
be translated; all Jewish experi-
ence must be made vivid; the
challenges presented to civiliza-
tion by Judaism must be brought
home to every Jew of whatever
economic class or intellectual
status.
One of the most ridiculous phe-
nomena in current Jewish life is
the Jew who becomes almost
violent over the denial of a fu-
ture to the diaspora, yet does
nothing either with his money or
his time to insure the diaspora's
survival.
Given Jews who do more than
merely worship, a Judaism in
translation would seem to be pos-
sible. For Judaism is a univer-
sal religion in a broader and
deeper sense than Christianity
ever was.
It need not be, and it has never
been, wrapped up in a unitary
cultural or linguistic package. In
practice it never can be, as long
as a diaspora exists in a free
environment.

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