Purely Commentary

By PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

About the Prodigiously Insecure 'Ex-Prodigy' Norbert Wiener

At the risk of inviting unpopularity, this reviewer must ex-
press disappointment bordering on nausea after reading Prof.
Norbert Wiener's "Ex-Prodigy: My Childhood and Youth" (pub-
lished by Simon and Schuster, 630 5th Ave., N.Y. 20). It was
natural for this reviewer to search for the causes and effects of
the Jewish influences upon the hero of this book—and these left
a bad taste.
Prof. Wiener, who "reveals" that he experienced a shock, at
the age of 16, upon learning that he was Jewish, writes a °Teat
deal about Judaism and his own conflicts. After reading his story,
one is compelled to inquire how it came about that this genius
should have been kept in the dark about a family background
which was so obvious.
His own story relates: "The responsibility for keeping the fact
of my Jewishness secret was largely my mother's. My father was
involved in all this only secondarily and by implication. I believe
that he had originally intended not to burden us by the con-
sciousness of belonging to an undervalued group, while at the
same time he wished to preserve intact our respect for that group
and our potential self-respect." He then proceeds to report that
his father had written articles on Jewish themes and a "History
of Yiddish Literature," that he was the first person to bring to
the attention of the non-Jewish public the name of Moritz Rosen-
feld and that there was friction in his negotiations with the Jew-
ish Publication Society and other Jewish organizations. With re-
spect to the latter he writes:
"Later I found that Father always claimed that the friction
was the result of an arrogant insistence on the part of the Jewish
organizations that a Jew was a Jew before he was a man, and
that he owed inalienable allegiance to his own group before hu-
manity itself. My father was always an individual, and was the
last man in the world to stand pressure of this kind."
We could stop right here with our challenge and ask the ex-
prodigy with what authority he speaks in this fashion about
American Jewry's organizations. He may have quoted his father
correctly, which does not crown with truth either his father's or
his own contentions. On the contrary, we charge that the above
statement is an incorrect evaluation of existing Jewish attitudes
in the organized American Jewish community whose leaders and
constituents always—always—placed emphasis on the traditional
Jewish teachings that one can not claim the right to being a good
Jew. unless he is a good man.
It is shocking and amazing that the Ex-Prodigy, who was
his father's pupil, who entered Tufts College at 11, graduating
at 14 and receiving his Ph.D at Harvard at 18, should be so un-
realistic in his judgment now, at the age of 58, after 33 years
of continuous teaching of mathematics at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. The shock of having learned of his
Jewishness, at the age of 16, is supposed to have added to the
"Wunderkind's" insecurity. Surely, he had much time in which
to acquaint himself with the Judaism he could not accept be-
cause he had only seen the Jewish community "from the out-
side."

Ex-Prodigy Wiener spoke of his sudden discovery that he
was a Jew as a shock which made him unprepared to face the
problems of anti-Semitism. We have often related the story told
about himself by the great Danish literary critic and authority
on Shakespeare, George Brandes. In his childhood, Brandes re-
lated—he must have been about 6 at the time—he was • taunted
with the appelation "Jew," "Jew," by children, while on a walk
with his nurse. He inquired of his mother, when he returned
home, "what is a Jew?" His mother raised him to a mirror and
said: "Here is a Jew." B;-- - s wrote that he never recovered
from that first shock. We ..we repeated this story time and
again as an admonition to parents that if they wish their chil-
dren not to be shocked and to be prepared for a protected life
to give them a good Jewish education. We wonder what would
have happened to Prodigy Norbert if he had been taught the
values of his ancestors' faith and ideals.

But he does boast about descent from Maimonides and his
one expression of pride is in his love for Heine's works: "I know,
as did my father, almost every word of his (Heine's) 'Hebraische
Melodien,' and there are no poems that can move the Jew in me
to greater pride or agony." If he had read more carefully Heine's
"Der Rabbi von Bacharach" he might have acquired greater love
for his ancestors, a more genuine respect for Jews and organized
Jewish life and therefore a measure of self-respect which would
have obviated insecurity. Wiener had other examples close to him:
Louis D. Brandeis, who also was a stranger to Judaism but who
came to the fold with dignity; Prof. Harry Wolfson of Harvard,
whom he mentions in his "Ex-Prodigy," and Israel Zangwill, with
whom his father argued against Zionism.
But if Zangwill was 'unsuccessful, it is hardly to be expected
that this criticism will go far in changing an attitude which
stems from a heritage based on the following explanation Wiener
gave of his father's view of Zionism:
"He was an assimilationist in a quite genuine sense, for he
felt that the future of the Jews in the newer countries lay in
their identifying their interests with those of the country, not
in opening the wound of a separate nationalism."
The answer is a simple one: in this country we are complete-
ly identified with our Americanism, in loyalty to which we do
not yield to anyone, not even the occupants of the White House.
In a democracy it is possible to live honorably by encouraging
those who seek independence through Jewish nationalism in an-
other land. But in Russia, where Jews also are identifying them-
selves with their country, as Wiener advises, they can not be free
people. Therein is to be found the fallacy of the Wiener assimi-
lationism. Perhaps we should be grateful to him for exposing
himself as frankly as he did in "Ex-Prodigy." There would have
been no argument against a personal confessional if he had not
exposed his readers to the view that American Jews and Jewish
organizations asked Jews to be Jews before being men. That, we
say, is untrue, and because Prof. Wiener did not search for the
truth in order to make the desired about-face for the sake of his
own self-respect, we were left with a bad taste upon reading his
"Ex-Prodigy." He convinced us that he remains prodigiously in-
secure and retains a precociousness which may be making him
unhappy.

`Honor Thy Mother

•

There is an old Jewish proverb:
"God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made
mothers."
•
On Mother's Day—remember to make God's work great
- by always honoring Mother.

2

—

DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Friday, May 8, 1953

Fourth Dr. Franklin

Share Junior Division Honors in
Top Allied Drive Achievements

Lecture on May 14

"American Foreign Policy and
the Concept of National Inter-
est" is the topic of the fourth
lecture in the current Leo M.
Franklix series. The speaker
is Dr. Dexter Perkins, chairman
of the history department of the
University of Rochester.
Open to the public without
charge, the lecture is scheduled
for 8 p.m., May 14, in Room 101,
State Hall, Wayne University.
A native of Boston, Dr. Perkins
earned both his A.B. and Ph.D.
degrees at Harvard University.
He is an outstanding authority
on American diplomatic history
and foreign relations. A prom-
inent official of the American
Historical Association, he has
been city historian for Rochester
since 1936.
The final lecture in this year's
series is on May 28. At that
time, the Leo M. Franklin pro-
fessorship for 1953-54 will be
announced.

Rabbi Silver to Receive
ZBT Gottheil Medal

Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver will
receive the Richard J. H. Gott-
heil medal, annually awarded
by Zeta Beta Tau national col-
lege fraternity at a dinner of
the Cleveland Alumni Club on
Tuesday, at the Hollendon
Hotel.
The award is presented an-
nually to the American, who in
the judgment of the fraternity's
trustees has done the most for
Jewry during the year for which
the award is made.
The medal, established in 1925
in honor of the late Mr. Gott-
hell, a world renowed educator,.
Jewish leader and for many
years president of ZBT, has gone
to many prominent Jews and
non-Jews.

Szold Heads PEC

Robert Szold, chairman of the
board of the Palestine Ecoflomic
Corporation, oldest American in-
vestment and development agen-
cy in Israel, was
elected presi-
dent of the 27-
year - old com-
pany at the
quarterly meet-
ing of the board
at the corpora-
tion's office s,
400 Madison
Ave., New York.
Mr. Szold was
also re-elected
chairman of the
R. Szold
board.
The board voted to accept
"with deepest regret and reluc-
tance" the resignation of Israel
B. Brodie, vice-chairman of the
Board for many years, who will
remain a director. Senator Her-
bert H. Lehman, one of the orig-
inal founders of the PEC, was
re-elected honorary chairman.
Mr. Szold is a former president
of the Zionist Organization of
America.

Music Club Members
To Perform at Parley

Members of Detroit's Music
Study Club will attend the con-
vention of the Michigan Feder-
ation of Music Clubs, scheduled
for Monday and Tuesday in
Port Huron.
The group's Triple Trio will
sing "Grace Before Meat" at
Tuesday's luncheon session, at
the First Congregational Church
called in honor of past presi-
dents of the state organization.
Participants will be Mesdames
Philip Donor., Meyer Gallen],
Leonard Hack, Oscar Kahan,
Bernard Lachs, Daniel Lewis,
Jacob Sauls, Nedwin L. Smokier,
Henry Wineberg and Milton
Wolfe, Mrs. Rubin Kaplan is ac-
companist, and Mrs. Maurice
Benyas will direct the Triple
. Trio.

Sparking the Junior Division phase of the Allied Jewish
Campaign are the following who share top leadership in the
division:left to right, top, LOUISE SCHOSTAK, ARTHUR
JAMES RUBINER, chairman of special gifts, and MARJORIE
COWAN; bottom, RONALD ROTHSTEIN, captain of special
gifts; RHODA GOLDSCHLAG and MICHAEL STACEY.

UJA Conference to Map Plans for
Israel's Agricultural Productivity

Plans to speed the financing
in Israel this summer of a criti-
cal agricul t u r al development
program aimed at an immediate
rise in the productivity of "land
and hand" will be mapped June
6 and 7 in Washington, D.C., at
an emergency national action
conference of the United Jewish
Appeal, it was announced by Ed-
ward M. M. Warburg, UJA gen-
eral chairman.
Mr. Warburg announced that
the emergency two-day con-
ference would mark the close
of a special $25,000,000 cash
drive launched on May 1 to
help Israel cope with a tem-
porary agricultural setback
resulting from a $10,000,000
crop failure in the Negev.
With reference to the plan for
a swift rise in Israel's agricul-
tural productivity, the UJA Gen-
eral Chairman warned that the
new State "cannot go on in-
definitely giving haven to
hundreds of thousands of refu-
gees on the present basis of an

agricultural output that

vides- only 30 percent of

pro-

the
average man's - daily food intake,
which must be supplemented by
the heavy import of staples."
The two-day conference, to be
held at the Mayflower Hotel,
will be addressed by outstand-
ing. U.S. and Israel government
figures and leaders in Jewish
communal affairs.
Mr. Warburg announced
also that Joseph Holtzman of
Detroit, UJA national cash
chairman, will officiate at a
special session Sunday, June
7, to be devoted to the pre-
sentation of community
checks in the current $25,-
000,000 drive.
Mr. Holtzman and members
of a newly-formed National
Cash Cabinet are now en route
to various parts of the country
to assist communities in work-
ing out local cash mobilization
drives and to address cash col-
lection volunteers on the urg-
ency of Israel's needs and the
plight of Iron Curtain escapees.

Between You and Me

By BORIS SMOLAR

(Copyright, 1953, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Inc.)

Jewish Affairs

Although the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-
Defamation League do not see eye to eye with the organizations
affiliated with the National Community Relations Advisory Coun-
cil, representatives of the two camps came together this week ...
They exchanged views on immigration problems, especially on ac-
tion concerning the demand for revision of the McCarran Immi-
gration law at a meeting on neutral grounds. It came about at the
initiative of -Senator Herbert H. Lehman, who is anxious to secure
a joint Jewish effort for modification of the McCarran Act. Notes
compared in a friendly fashion, went no further than exchang-
ing views . . . All indications point to the fact that none of the
Jewish organizations are happy about President Eisenhower's
moves on the immigration situation . . It is clear that Jews in
Europe will benefit very little, if at all, from the President's re-
quest for the admission in two years, of 240,000 immigrants out-
side of the quota . . . They could, however, benefit if the Me-
Carran Immigration Law were revised . . . But President Eisen-
hower asked Congress merely for a study of the "injustices" in the
McCarran Act . .. How long it would take to carry out such a
study and what recommendations would come from such a study
—these are different questions.

*

*

*

Israel Affairs

The renewed border incidents along the Israel-Jordan fron-
tiers are being studied in United Nations circles with some sus-
picion . . . The flare-up coincides with the Anglo-Egyptian meet-
ing on Egypt's demand for the immediate withdrawal of British
military forces from the Suez Canal ... Some suspect that Jor-
dan's provocations are motivated by a desire to create a situation
in which "helpless Jordan" is compelled to invoke the military as-
sistance of its patron-ally, Great Britain . . . thus preparing the
ground for the transfer of British forces from the Suez Canal area
to. Jordan territory . . The Jordan government once before call-
ed on Great Britain to send troops into Jordan to repel "Israel
aggression" . . . At that time, Britain refused the request .
Now
it is considered by some that this maneuver must have been a
dress rehearsal to give the British army a valid excuse for going
into Jordan, as part of the planned evacuation of the Suez Canal
zone . . . For, even though Jordan is dependent ,on Britain, Arab
public opinion_ throughout the Middle East would resent_ such a
British action without what appeared to be a valid excuse.
The
Israel-Jordan border incidents serve to provide this excuse — . If
they were not acted upon earlier, it is probably because of the
delay in agreeing on the evacuation of the canal zone,