TH E DETROIT JE W ISH NEW S—Friday, Febru ary 13, 1959- 2

Purely Commentary

Boris Smolar, the editor of the Jewish Tele-
graphic Agency, our esteemed confrere who shares
the major sections of this page with us weekly,
already has reviewed, briefly, "Painter's Self-Por-
trait," by James N. Rosenberg, (published by Crown,
419 Fourth Ave., New York 16). He has praised it
highly and deservedly:-
Your Commentator has just read the hook. He
not only shares Mr. Smolar's sentiments: he wishes
to add to his commendations and to encourage every
lover of art and all who are interested in the high-
lights of American Jewish history in the last four
decades to acquire it. Those who possess it will re-
fuse to part with it. They'll discuss it. They'll be
stirred by the sentiments of a man who, although
he was raised in a non-religious atmosphere, came
to the fore as a great Jewish leader.
Mr. Rosenberg deals with many problems. His
reminiscences serve as warnings to the complacent
not to be fooled into believing that all traces of
anti-Semitism have disappeared. They admonish us
never to forget the Nazi holocaust. They remind us
of the days when anti-Semitism was rooted in social
life in our colleges and was rampant in fraternities.
A very successful lawyer, Mr. Rosenberg, who is
now in his 85th year. practiced his profession during
the day and painted at night. He devoted his vaca-
tions, his week-ends, his free days, to art.
The Rosenberg story is told in 100 pages. An
additional 14 pages—an Appendix—are devoted to
the reprinting of his poem "Roman Holiday—Con-
versation Piece 1926." reprinted from the April 1947
Menorah Journal. The author's art works are repro-
duced in 100 more pages of this impressive volume.
Much of the story naturally is devoted to discus-
sions of art and artists, to the author's experiences
as a painter and as a sponsor of art lexhibitions and
artists.
Many of Mr. Rosenberg's works are now in the
Metropolitan Museum of New Ydrk, in the Museum
of Fine Arts of Boston. in the Fogg Art Museum
of Harvard University. in the New York Public
Library, in the Smithsonian Institution, in the U. S.
State Department. in the Cleveland Museum of Art,
in the Georgia Museum of Art (Athens, Ga.), in
U. S. Embassies, in many other national galleries
here and abroad and in many private collections.
including those of the Herbert Lehmans.
The rise of Hitlerisin and the consequent
Nazi horrors inspired the Rosenberg art works
which will remain indelibly in the art world's
history. Mr. Rosenberg's evaluation of Hitler, in
"Is This the Man That Made the Earth to
Tremble?" in his Ironism series. (Pastel, 1944),
is an historic document. So are a number of
others which the eminent artist was moved to
draw and to paint as an expression of protest
against the terror that gripped the world.
He befriended Sholem Asch and David Ben-
Gurion and drew impressive portraits of them.
His "Peace on Earth". a Hanukah - Christmas
montage, is exceptionally interesting. He specialized
in landscapes. and he also revealed his moods in
various paintings that were the results of historic
occurrences in his 50 years' activities as a painter.
*
*
*
The value of "Painter's Self-Portrait" as a great
human document is evident in many of its aspects.
Mr. Rosenberg, hailing from a religious background,
was raised in a rather un-Jewish environment. He
was born in Allegheny City,'Pa., Nov. 20, 1874; his
grandfather, Louis Naumburg, who reached the ripe
old age of 87, was cantor and officiated as rabbi of
Rodeph Shalom Synagogue in Pittsburgh; but when
his family moved to New York in 1879, his "parents
forsook the strict rituals of orthodox Judaism, joined
the Ethical Culture Society. headed by Felix Adler,"
and James N. Rosenberg attended Ethical classes.
But in the course of time, in college and elsewhere,
experiences brought him to an awareness that he
was a Jew.
Among his early sad experiences was his rejec-
tion for membership. in 1900. in the Columbia Uni-
versity Club. There was this notable subsequent
occurrence:
• "On May 3. 1956. there came a sequel to this
old story which is not entirely irrelevant. Out
•of the blue I received a letter from the chair-
man of . the Club's Admissions Committee in-
viting me, 'at the suggestion of Dr. Grayson
Kirk' (Columbia's President). to join the Club.
`Being now 81 years of age. most of my Coluni-
hia associates are no more,' I replied. 'I hope
it will not be regarded as ungracious of me to
decline an invitation which would have gladly
been accepted had it come a half century ago.'"
Describing his college experiences, Mr. Rosen-
berg writes that he "learned that the doors of fra-
ternity houses were locked against me; refused to
join a Jewish fraternity because I did not—and do
not—believe that such separatism is good for us
humans. .. . "
*
«
Mr. Rosenberg might have become a Detroiter.
He relates, after accounting for his early law prac-
tice and his association with the late Abram Elkus
(who later was U. S. Ambassador to Turkey):
"In 1912, when I was 38, there came to me
the U. S. Motor Receivership. This was my big-
best case up to that time; it was presided over
by Judge Hough. When its reorganization in
1913 created the Maxwell Motor Company—now
Chrysler—George W. Davison. chairman of the

By Philip

Major Events of the Century Evaluated in
James N. Rosenberg's 'Painter's Self-Portrait'

reorganization committee, invited me to aban-
don the law, move to Detroit (at a large salary
and a stock of bonus), and become the com-
pany's head. This was another of those crucial
moments which make or mar a man. What. I
wonder, would have happened had I accepted
that tempting proposal to become an industrial
leader? Success or failure? Leader? Or slave?
I declined the offer. Somehow, I had the sense
to realize that to accept would have meant fare-
well to the kind of life I wanted to lead."
The question often is asked in our community:
why. weren't there Jews in the pioneering automobile
industry in Detroit? There was one such pioneer:
the late Bernard Ginsburg (father of Mrs. Golda
Krolik), whose truck manufacturing venture was
short-lived. Had Mr. Rosenberg come here, a dif-
ferent story might have been recorded.
In his self-portrait, however, he does relate his
numerous successes in law, the friendship that was
established with - Judge Hough after he had won a
case, as a young practitioner, against the veteran,
eminent lawyer. Max D. Steuer.
But he had a special love—for art—for which he
finally forsook his lucrative law practice 12 years
ago—and his motivation, in refusing the tempting
Maxwell offer, is understandable.
*
*
He begins his narrative of his Jewish activities
in a chapter in his book under the heading "Another
World." In it he tells of the meeting with Felix M.
Warburg and the invitation that he go to Russia
to work for the American Jewish Joint Distribution
Committee. It led to his friendship and his joint
activities with the great Jews of his day. with Louis
Marshall, Warburg, Justice Louis D. Brandeis. Judge
Julian W. Mack, Cyrus Adler. Herbert H. Lehman
and many others.
He assisted in the formation of the Jewish
Agency in Zurich, in 1929, went to Palestine and
later to Israel, cooperated in major movements for
rehabilitation of suffering Jews. He was the co-
worker with Dr. Joseph A. Rosen in the Agrojoint
(American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation)
which established self-supporting colonies for 300,000
Jews in the Crimea in Russia, and he had occasion
to meet with Stalin and to confer with Soviet leaders.
During World War II these colonial settlements
were completely destroyed! It is one of the tragedies
of our time referred to in Mr. Rosenberg's accounts
of his Jewish activities.

He went to Rome in 1926, in the course of his
travels for the Agrojoint and the JDC. He relates
this incident:
"While we were in Rome an old foreign
woman attempted to assassinate Mussolini. 'Jews.'
cried the Fascisti. and mobbed old bearded He-
brews. This led to my writing a poem on the
very large menu of the Ulpia Restaurant—once
a basilica—where Bessie (Mrs. Rosenberg) and I
had a copious luncheon. Twenty years later I
found that poem among some papers in my
studio. In 1947 it was published in the Menorah
journal. whose editor. Henry Hurwitz. has con-
sented to its publication in this book. That poem
being as revealing a part of me as anything in
my entire life. I include it as a sort of epilogue.
It is an overture to the somber paintings of my
late years."
Indeed, . his Roman Holiday Conversation Piece

Slomovitz

is most revealing. It is a book in itself. It is a great
commentary on a sensitive Jew's reactions to injus-
tice, to the incident in which —
Yesterday
A mad old woman.
An Irish woman, the papers say,
Came all the way
To Rome
To murder Mussolini.
The aged lady sought his life
With an appropriate butcher's knife.
At once a Fascist mob cries out.
"Behold! It is a Jew who seeks
To slay our -noble master."
Faster than speed of light
Ten thousand blackshirts
Armed for fight;
March on the Jewish ghetto.
They are going to sack it
And hack it to bits.
Someone is quick
And in the lucky nick
Of time the truth is out.
With curses, the mob disperses.
There remain only jeers and hoots:
And iron boots.
Only a few dozen patriarchs' beards
Are plucked out by the roots.

That always seems to be the story
Ancient and hoary.
Always we are strangers at the gate.
We come too soon: we come too late.
We are unwanted. Wherefore? Look!
Is it because we always
Carry an unwelcome Book?
Must we be smitten
For what we have written?
Is it libel
To speak so of the Bible?
The large 14 pages devoted to the complete
"Roman Holiday" poem are. in a way, an historic
analysis of the Jew as the world's scapegoat. A
great spirit is imbedded in it.

*

There is much—very much—more that can be
said about Mr. Rosenberg. and a great deal that is
worth quoting from it. One additional incident must
not be overlooked. He went to Berlin, in the course
of his Agrojoint mission. and he tells this story:
"A dinner party was given for me at the
splendid Wahnsee home of Lola Hahn, glamorous
daughter of Felix Warburg's brother Max. There
I met some 20 topmost German Jews, who were
eager to know about - the Crimean work. Albert
Einstein was one of the guests.
"When the time came for me to speak, I dealt
but briefly with the Crimea and turned to another
topic. This, be it remembered, was 1926. Taking
a magazine called Bren Esse' (Nettle) from my
pocket, I told how by chance I had picked up that
savage anti-Semitic journal at the Berlin railway
station. Pointing to hideously offensive caricatures
of some of the very men who sat at that dinner
table and to inciting libels against them, I asked
what was being done to stop Hitler. They listened
tolerantly to this ignorant American and assured
him that Hitler was just another one of those
harmless demagogues who from time to time rose
briefly to the surface and soon vanished. Germany,
they told me, suffered no such anti-Semitism as
did we of the U. S. A. They were members of
some of Germany's most exclusive clubs. Ein-
stein's warnings were heeded no more than were
mine. Who can blame them?"

*

Informal photo of James N. Rosenberg, by
Budd, New York. In the background is Rosen-
berg's oil painting, "Black Eyes" (1922) .

At this point your Commentator couldn't avoid
recalling the activities of the late Rev. Dr. Leon M.
Birkhead. He was a Christian minister in Kansas
City, Mo., and had gone to Germany on a vacation
in the early 1930s. There, by chance, he visited a
book exhibit. It was a display of anti-Semitic liter-
ature arranged by Streicher, and the sponsors of
the exhibit indicated that most of the tre-
mendous mass of hate literature was published in
the United States. Our good friend Birkhead began
to wonder: was it possible that such vile, hate-
inspiring pamphlets could find sponsors in his own
country and he was unaware of it? He returned
to this country, began to study the situation, learned
of the. extent of bigotry, became acquainted with the
growing anti-Semitic movement, and he gave up the
ministry to devote himself to the fight against big-
otry. His movement, "Friends of Democracy," made
great headway in warding off mounting prejudices
in our land.
*
*
This is the story of a great book and a great man.
It keeps us fully aware of what had happened to us
and to our people in this and the last generation.
It admonishes us to be on guard against the inroads
of bigotry into our civilized democracy.
It reminds us of the immense philanthropic ef-
forts of Mr. Rosenberg's contemporaries, and, above
all, it causes us to sit in admiration for a man who
was so socially minded, who was great in his pro-
fession—the law—and who, at 84, remains a keen
observer, a sensitive artist, a dedicated fighter
against all types of prejudices, a remarkable Jewish
leader.
"Painter's Self-Portrait" by James N. Rosenberg
assumes one of the most cherished spots in our
bookshelves.

