Americo Jewish Periodical Celli
Friday, November 10. 1950
DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE
Page 4
Detroit Jewish C hronicle Struggles of a Jewish Author
Published Weekly by the Jewish Chronicle Publishing Co., Inc.
WOodward 1-1040
900 Lawyers' Building, Detroit 26, Michigan
Belie Cultural Renaissance
Entered as Second-class matter March 3, 1916, at the Post Office at
Detroit, Mich., under the Act of March 3, 1879
As part of the observance of Jewish Book Mouth in Detroit, the Detroit Jewish Chronicle
during the past several months in
wrote to several authors whose books have be en reviewed
increase
in the number of books on subjects
asked
to
espiaia
the
were
our columns. These writers
of Jewish interest during the last year.
renaissance" in cultural terms
They were asked specifically if they saw s igns of a "Jewish
for
it.
They
were
also
queried
as
to
how
they had come to choose the
accounted
and if so how they
subjects of their recent books.
Levin whose autobiography "In
The author of the first in a series of articl es is Meyer
the post-war period. Levin will be
Search," we consider one of the most important Jewish books of
Dec. 6. Ed.
in Detroit to address the A inerfran Jewish Congress
• • •
SUBSCRIPTION
$3.00 Per Year. Single Copies, 10c; Foreign, $5.00 Per Year
SEYMOUR TILCHIN
Publisher
GERHARDT NEUMANN
NORMAN KOLIN
Editor
Advertising Manager
Friday, November 10, 1950
Kislev 1, 5711
Action on a Large Scale
The National Planning Conference held in Washington Oct.
28 approved, in a long statement of principles, aid to Israel on
a large scale. Israel needs $1,500,000,000 within the next three
years for the absorption and rehabilitation of the immigrants
and the consolidation of its economy. Half a billion dollars
will be raised by Israel itself.
The conference decided that a billion dollars could be raised
in America through contributions to the United Jewish Appeal,
intensified private investments and loans from official and
private sources. The meeting also pledged "fullest coopera-
tion for the success of any effort that will be made by the gov-
ernment of Israel to float a public loan in the United States."
It is expected that such a bond issue will become a reality
next spring.
There is general consensus that without effective financial
aid to Israel the whole existence of the Jewish state is seriously
threatened. Israel's economy is too weak to cope with an im-
migration that equals the original population. Any country, no
matter how well established, would totter under such an impact.
American Jewry's responsibility for the continued existence of
Israel is of course the prime motivation for our concern with its
problems and our willingness to assist the Jewish state.
•
•
•
The experts will have to decide now on the best possible
methods of obtaining the enormous sums needed. However, it
is not only a technical question which interests only experts and
the organizations involved. It is really a question that concerns
every Jew in this country.
More than six million Jews laid down their lives during the
darkest period of Jewish history. Their obliteration has left the
Jewish people weakened physically and faced with the question:
is there still a Jewish will to survive or should we give up and
try to liquidate ourselves?
The Jewish people answered the question without hesitation:
Jews do not give up under fire. The Nazis perished. The Jewish
state was born.
It was a political event that electrified the world and in-
creased the respect for the Jewish people immeasurably. But
it was clear from the beginning that the problems of the Jewish
state would be tremendous ones. The hostility of the Arab
world put the Jews living in Moslem countries in an impossible
situation, and the only place for them to go was Israel. Corn-
pared with them, the DP problem in Europe was a minor affair.
•
Israel has struggled hard to do what it could within the
scope of its possibilities. The people of Israel have accepted high
taxation, low wages, low-calory food rations, housing shortages
and many other impositions in order to relieve the suffering of
their fellow-Jews. But their heroic efforts must fall short of
the most elementary needs of the increasing population.
We hope that American Jews will open their hearts and their
minds to the plight of Israel and those who are seeking a refuge
and a lasting home there. Whether they increase their contri-
butions to UJA or decide to put their money into Israeli bonds—
one should not interfne with the other—they should always bear
in mind that their dollars will be used to save souls, to rebuild
lives, to reconstruct the hopes of Jews who have lost their homes
and citizenship.
The Jews of America alone cannot do the job; they need the
assistance of their Christian friends to put up the money needed
in Israel. We cannot conceive of any cause that, at the same
time, serves such high humanitarian purposes and also is a good
and sound business proposition. Israel, as the natural gateway
to the Near East, should interest American industry and invite
investment on a larger scale.
Israel must live. It can live when we decide to make it live.
The Jews who came to Washington have decided so.
Preaching and Reporting
Jewish writers had better be practical businessmen or good
entertainers, stop bellyaching about- Jewish ideals, Jewish
decency and Jewish self-respect, be willing to learn which side
their bread is buttered on — or remain where they are."
This is the opinion of Philip Rubin who in Congress
Weekly (Oct. 30) writes about the Anglo-Jewish press and what
is wrong with it. He finds that the Anglo-Jewish press is mainly
concerned with "making money" but does not "preach" about
"principles and ideals."
No doubt, there is some justification in Rubin's criticism.
A great number of Jewish papers fall under his classification.
We do not agree with him, however, that the Anglo-Jewish press
is not being read by its subscribers. Since they buy a paper such
as the Jewish Chronicle of their own will, it must be assumed
that they take some interest in Jewish affairs, although we feel
that much remains to be done to stimulate greater reader in-
terest which would manifest itself in a more active participation
of the readers in the paper.
Rubin is quite right when he states that a Jewish paper has
to deal with more "sensitivity" on the part of influential Jewish
personalities and organizations than the Yiddish press or the
normal daily paper.
What the Anglo-Jewish press lacks is a frank discussion of
local issues and sufficient information on what is going on. The
Jewish Chronicle is determined to report and comment on such
issues and considers it its main journalistic duty to keep the
public informed. It seems that our organizations are not yet
quite used to this idea, but we think that they will understand
sooner or later that an informed public is of greater value than
a public left in the dark.
Let's leave preaching to the rabbis, Mr. Rubin. We stick to
reporting.
—
By MEYER LEVIN
MO, THE MILLENIUM has not come for the
writer who writes about Jews, even though
there seems to be a "flood of Jewish Books" this
season.
The number of books on Jewish subjects is a
p
of the
reflection of the dee p Jewish ex erience
past decade. The tragic drama in Europe and the
intense activity in Israel have provided material
such as no other people possesses.
If there seem sto be a good deal of material pub-
lished, it is probably only a small proportion of
the highly valuable material being produced. For
publishers still don't want books about Jews.
Here is a concrete example: In Amsterdam, two
refugee Jewish families hid in a tiny backyard
house, to be caught just before liberation. A girl
of 14, Anne Frank, kept a diary during the entire
period of hiding.
It was published recently in Holland and France.
"The Journal of Anne Frank" has gone through
eight editions in France. It is accepted as a mas-
terpiece, for it is a beautiful picture of the un-
folding of the nature of a young girl, even under
these extraordinary conditions.
In short, this diary is, in actuality, what "The
Wall" purported to be—a document of Jewish life,
found after that life had been destroyed.
• • •
IT MIGHT BE thought that with the immense
popularity of "The Wall," American publishers
would have concluded that there is an audience
for this sort of thing, and that since the literary
value and public appeal of this book has been
proven, in two languages, an American edition
would be easily secured.
Not all. Up to this date, "The Journal of
Anne Frank" has been turned down by an
impressive list of American publishers—much
the same list, I might say, of publishers who
turned down my own book, "In Search." And
the reasons are the same. They doubt the
commercial value of the book!
I am known to be bitter on this subject, and I
will not disguise my bitterness. Indeed, I will say
some of the things that people like to keep hushed
up. Let us take the case of "The Wall." I am not
the only writer who feels a jealousy and a dis-
appointment in the fact that is was not one of
ourselves who was chosen to write the story of
the Warsaw ghetto. Chosen? you ask. Yes, chosen,
for it is commonly known in New York publishing
circles that the book was stimulated by certain
Jewish philanthropists.
This is not a literary discussion. There is no
question of whether Mr. Hersey did a great job
or a mediocre job, whether the book is definitive
or not.
The point is that when leading Jews sought to
have a book written about this great tragedy, the
symbolic book of the entire Jewish tragedy in
Europe, they turned not to a proven Jewish writer
but to a non-Jew. Why?
Over and over I have been told by publishing
friends, "It was a very wise thing10 do. Had -Ile
Wall" been written by a Jew, it would never have
secured the attention it received."
• • •
I FOR ONE am sick and angry over this atti-
tude. I've had to contend with it all my writing
life. I had to contend with it in bitterest form
last year, when I could not find a publisher for
"In Search," and had to resort to publishing it
myself in Paris, though 1 don't have the money
for that sort of thing.
Yes, in a self-pitying way I had to view my
situation as a man who had devoted his career
to writing about his people, who had worked
well enough so that many critics called his
novels the best in the field, and yet who at the
height of his powers found his work rejected
by one publisher after another because it was
"too Jewish"—while at the same time the
community called in a non-Jew to write a
book of Jewish experience! Isn't this scan-
dalous?
When my book finally found publication through
a small h9use in New York, I was gratified to re-
ceive praise from Thomas Mann, Albert Einstein,
Sholem Asch, dozens of important rabbis, and
from some of my most respected contemporaries,
Norman Mailer, Max Lerner, and Quentin
Reynolds.
But sales are usually in proportion to the re-
view space and advertising, and though individual
readers wrote me that "In Search" was a most
important book in their lives, and though one
might expect that the community would desire its
author to have the opportunity to continue his
work, my earnings could scarcely keep me going
for a few months.
• • •
THERE IS NO supporting audience for Jewish
books. For example—the most imposing magazine
in the Jewish cultural fi61d—"Commentary"—has
not, to this day, published a review of "In Search."
How are we to get our work to its audience?
The general press tends to neglect books of
special Jewish content. I had to beg for the
reviews a book of this quality—if on another
subject—would normally have received.
Yes, a lot of Jewish books are being written,
and by sheer weight of product, a certain amount
gets published. It must also be realized that events
in Europe and Israel have produced a conscious-
ness and a thoughtfulnes in American Jewry, so
that there is indeed an audience for this material.
But in the terrible competition for attention in
the book field, it is very difficult for a work of "a
special nature"—that is, on a Jewish theme—to
receive enough advertising and publicity to bring
it to its potential audierlce.
Such discussions as yours are helpful. Such
promotions as Jewish Book Week are helpful. But
when I talk to publishers about a next book they
ask: "About Jews again? When will you get
wise?"
Writer Breaks a Lance
for the Jewish Woman
By WILLIAM ZUKERMAN
EVERAL MONTHS AGO, the English-Jewish press was agitated
by the story of a unique "sit-down" strike of Jewish women in
the Great Synagogue of Louisville, Ky.
The women struck in protesti
against their segregation from to do a "man's" job. They were
their men in the synagogue. They shouted down, insulted publicly,
demanded the right to be seated and their motion was defeated.
with their husbands and sons The meeting ended in "one of
during the service as is the cus- the most shameful public scan-
tom among every civilized peo- dals ever known in Johannes-
burg" as it was described by the
ple.
When this was refused again Jewish press of that city.
• • •
and again, they declared a
THE
SO-CALLED
"inferiority"
"strike" and stopped the Sabbath
services for several weeks in of women proclaimed by the
succession until their demand was Torah is a mere religious myth
which has not existed in Jewish
granted.
A similar incident which, how- life for hundreds of years.
Throughout the Middle Ages
ever, ended differently, has oc-
curred now in Johannesburg, and down to the beginning of the
South Africa. There, a number 20th century, the Jewish woman
of Jewish women belonging to of the ghetto was not only the
the Burial Society, and, inciden- mother who raised the family,
tally, running its entire relief but also the provider of the
department, demanded the right family.
She kept the store and inn; she
to stand for office in the execu-
tive committee of that organiza- traded in the market; she han-
dled the rough peasants and
tion.
Johannesburg orthodox Jews dealt with the nobility; she work-
were horrified by the demand. ed on the land whenever that
The women were told not to try was permissable, tending the
S
garden, milking the cows and
performing most of the tasks
which were performed mainly
by men in the western countries.
In the middle and upper class-
es of the ghetto, the real "man"
of the family was the woman.
The man was, at best, a gentle
scholar who spent most of his
days and nights at the synagogue
studying the Talmud and wast-
ing hi. time on legalistic specu-
lation.
• • •
THIS LED TO a deporable
dAerioration of the man in the
ghetto. As a result of centuries
of idleness and futile speculation,
he became weak, flabby, ineffi-
cient, unable to do anything real
in a practical world.
To hide his inefficiency and
weakness, he invented a double
theory of being choseh by God
both for his race and sex.
On the other hand, his "in-
ferior" wife became strong, self-
reliant, independent and free—
a real person of quality, charae-
ter and beauty.
The independence of the ver-
age Jewish man in &stens
Europe, is as old as his eman-
cipation, which is less than 100
years. The Jewish woman, on
the other hand, had been free,
active, independent and had
lived outside the ghetto walls
for centuries before that.