lemter

CLIFTON AVENUE - CINCINNATI 20, onto

DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE

Friday, December 15. 1950

Page 3

`The Wall' Not Subsidized, Writer Tells Levin

By PHINEAS J. BIRON
DEAR MEYER LEVIN:
We have a high regard for your writing ability and
your intellectual honesty.
Your "In Search" is a book of gen-
uine importance and significance.
Knowing you as a sensitive, perhaps
too sensitive human being, we cannot
reconcile the Meyer Levin we know
for many years with your tactless and'
unjust comments on John Hersey's
"The Wall" in your article in the Jew-
ish Chronicle of Nov. 10.
You are wrong. John Hersey was
not "chosen" by Jewish philanthropists
to write "The Wall."
If you had been in this country
Biron
during the last few years, and frequented the circles in
which Hersey moved, you would never have made such
a silly remark.

JOHN HERSHEY, for three years before he tackled
"The Wall" had a veritable obsession, an idea fixe on
writing the story of the Warsaw ghetto.
There was no "stimulation" (whatever you may
mean by this word) from any Jewish organization to
get Hersey to write the book.
It was his own idea, and his standing in the book-
world made it possible for him financially to devote the
necessary time, both in Poland and in this country, to
complete his monumental work.
Sure, he received the cooperation of groups, both
here and in Europe, who could make available to him
the date, documents, and other materials from the col-
lected archives. But you are totally wrong.
• • •

YOU AS A SENSITIVE Jew, should ask yourself
rather this question: how come that no "proven Jewish
writer" selected the Warsaw Ghetto as a subject for a
book?

Wagner Loses Argumen t
But Gets What He Wants

By ROBERT SEELAV

"T_TERMANN LEVI, you are a numb-skull," fairly shouted the great composer Wilhelm Richard Wag-
" ner, strutting across the studio floor, and looking angrily at his guest. The musical director to
whom the remark was aimed looked observingly toward. Wagner, measured carefully the extent to
which he can suitably reply to the affront and finally said:
■ i "Not that, master, For that you'
must look among the pure Ger- power and destruction appear ness, or a patriot his devotion to
mans."
over -whelming and eternal. But duty."
• • •
i "Indeed," he shouted in a high they are not. Love is eternal and
f staccato, then he hesitated, think- universal and dates from creation.
"I WILL NOT have your Judaic
big that perhaps he had trans- 'And we descend from that an- sophistries," shouted the compos-
,gressed a little, and, perhaps Levi cient day. It is only a few cen- er, irked by the facts as against
"is right, "I can truthfully call you lories ago that you came down his furious convictions. "Close
an accursed Jew." upon a civilized Europe, dressed your eyes, Levi, and listen silent-
' "A Jew, yes," came the retort, in bear-skin and armed with flints ly to our thrilling sounds. Then
d the air was slightly electrified and destroyed the results of cen- judge clearly. There is no one to
compare with you in the judgment
with anger, which, elsewhere, tunics of our advanced minds."
-might have been alarming, but 'But, Levi, we, too, sing of love of my compositions."
"No one, my master, grasps the
in the German States the excoria-,
tion of the Jew, with or without
"Please.pardon my interruption,
season, was quite commonplace. master. It is love built on power
"After all, Levi," Wagner pro- and on imagery and exaggerated
eded in what began as a discus- imagination of things on high.
'akin on music, 'your clan can not Ours is the love of humans, every
claim a major position in music. day sentimentals. Yours is the
You do not have the foundation bombastic and the impossible, the
for it. All you have is the syna- unknown."
gogual music. And what is that?
"But our music has form and
',It is like the coloring on the egg; you cannot acquire that easily."
it gives no especial taste to the
"Indeed we can, and we have.
egg. Your music, wholly liturgi- Do you, master, shun all other
al, is beseeching and bewailing:
music? Do you isolate your mind
1 ,,io that you add an outer color of
1,Aveeping, to add more appeal to entirely? Music is a language.
We gave Europe its alphabet and
your God."
"You fail to add, master," smil- a new language, to us, is only a
ingly replied the conductor, "that transposition of our own symbols.
"We sang to form and now we
when my people, or my clan, as
you call us, possessed this form of adopt new forms. Your forms, Rep. Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr.
music in the far distant past your which you think are new are only and Lawrence O'Larry, presi-
Germans and all other so-called additions with slight variations, dent of St. Clair Furs, Inc., ex-
Caucasians knew only the screech or, may we say, enlargements. change views at the recent sil-
of animal fear. Your religious The symbols you created, are ver jubilee of the Detroit
leaders, later on, copied our form characteristic of your Germanic Council of Pioneer Women at
of song, gave it a modified coat, people and of them alone.
Masonsic Temple.
"Indeed it is a sign of weakness
with the similar beseeching and
bewailing that you critically com- and not very convincing; a strong
ment upon, to please the barbari- man does not fiercely proclaim his
strength, nor a good man his kind-
ans.
• • •
"NOW, MASTER, my people
If yew Own I •
form the creative group for the
Current Rate
modern music for every popula-
upside, dew& you weal
tion amidst which we live. We
Federally
find a fins, wino than
adopt their themes and their back-
nsured for
.. grounds and then add the great
music, which you called the color
This is a Phenomenal Dividend for
Insured Savings Accounts.
on the egg."
NO SERVICE FEE
"No, no, Levi, you do not know
DAVIDSON & CO.
C.
N.
their themes and backgrounds.
423 Dime Bldg., Detroit 26
WINES
WO. 3-3223
can
not
write
of
nationalism,
You
MILAN WINERIES. DETROIT. MICHIGAN
of power, or a land of your own to
defend. You may try to absorb
these fundamentals, but the spirit
does not flow in your own blood
streams. No, you can not do it."
SCOTTISH RITE CATHEDRAL
/ "These arc the superficial as-
One Performance Only
pects and the temporary views of
life. To Germans these themes of
SUNDAY, DEC. 24, 8:30 P. M.

i

Talking It Over

i

3

Italian Fascists

depth of your creations as soundly
as I do; you have no greater di-
sciple, and I pledge you that de-
votion for the rest of my years.
True music needs no particular
ROME — (WNS) — Regulation
form or rule. That is my rule of "of the Jewish problem in Italy"
judgment. Hence my recognition was demanded by the neo-Fas-
of all others, regardless of their cists in this country who were
racial origin. I have listened to reported to have intensified their
your music in many mental atti- anti-Semitic agitation.
tudes. Why not listen, too, to
In an article appearing in
Mendelssohn?"
Rome's neo-Fascist paper, refer-
"No, no," came from the exas- ence is made to Mussolini's in-
perated composer, "lie is a Jew! famous decree that "members of
"Indeed he is, replete with the the Jewish race living in Italy
past of his people and yet a Ger- are aliense and must be deemed
man, or also a German if I may as hostile elements." The writer
be permitted to use the phrase. demands that the Italian govern-
He has every sentiment and tra- ment implement the Mussolini
dition of Israel and the form of manifesto regarding Jews.
German composition. A rare ar-
rangement."
37,000 Immigrants
"I presume," Levi continued,
"that you consider Rubinstein, of Still in Israeli Camps
Russia, a barbarian, that is, a
JERUSALEM—(WNS)—About
Russian-Jewish barbarian," and 460,000 Jewish immigrants have
without allowing for a reply, "I been settled in Israel within the
suppose you consider Offenbach a past two years, and only 37,000
French-Jewish boulevardier and a are still housed in immigrant re-
ception camps, it was announced
Parisian roysterer?"
"You do cover the earth, Levi, at a meeting of the Parliamentary
you and your clan. I shall con- Labor Committee.
The meeting lauded the work
tinue to dislike you, with or with-
of
the Israeli Army in helping
out your musical eloquence, with to move
many new arrivals into
traditions
great
or without your
"work"
villages."
the
and your achievements. You are
still an accursed Jew, but you are
A welcome gift for any occa-
my Jew.
sion is a subscription to the Jew-
"Tonight you will conduct my
ish Chronicle. Call WO. 1-1040.
Tristan and Isolde at the Staats
Opera, and I shall listen so that
you do not interpolate any of your imageries even if they are only
Jewish sentiments and traditions. tribal hallucinations. That is what
I shall expect only my Germanic I wrote."

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You, for instance, preferred to analyze your inner
self and to occupy yourself with the probing of your
emotions and intellectual reactions as a writer caught
in the conflict between being a Jew and an American.
Shalom Asch, a Polish Yiddish author, chose "Mary"
the mother of Jesus, as a topic.
Maurice Samuel and Ludwig Lewisohn are immersed
in abstract speculations about Judaism.
John Hersey, the non-Jew, was not "chosen." He
chose himself.
It was providential that he did so. None of the Jew-
ish writers, including yourself, could have done as well.
All rumors to the contrary, John Hersey was not
in any way "stimulated" or "chosen" by Jewish philan-
thropists. And if you don't believe us, read again "'Pile
Wall."
You will convince yourself that John Hersey has no
stomach for Jewish philanthropists. His description of
the Warsaw Judenrat is sufficient evidence against your
uncalled for, unworthy accusations.

CONTINUES!

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