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Purely Commentary
Contrasting Attitudes Among Our Young Writers
'Goodbye, Columbue•and 'The Zulu and the Zeide:
The Jewish educational survey released earlier this month
showed many positive and some negative aspects of the status
>7; of our schools and the responses from pupils and parents to
ctt the need for extensive Jewish educational efforts.
Among the distressing elements revealed in the 'study is
the revelation that our youth start their Jewish studies too late
and end them too soon.
ua
Perhaps this accounts in large measure for the manner in
which able young Jewish authors emphasize the negative aspects
of Jewish life and choose to portray the destructive rather than
the constructive influences.
This is unquestionably the case with an able 26-year-old
ri writer, Philip Roth, whose "Goodbye, Columbus," published by
1-* Houghton Mifflin Co., is attracting wide attention.
The title story in the group of six in this book is about a
5 poor boy who falls in love with a rich girl who eventually snubs
him. "Goodbye, Columbus" is an. excellent portrayal of a group
w of characters who are Jews. It might have been a story about
A people of any other denomination. Brenda Patimkin and Neil
Klugman are naturals. So is Brenda's brother, Ron, who is
1
entranced with his football career at Ohio State University
and who goes into stupor when "Goodbye, Columbus" is played
on a record: Brenda's and Ron's parents also are typical of
many Jews, and so is Ron's bride who is a constant yes-sayer
to her future mother-in-law.
Our amazement is that Philip Roth, like so many writers
before him, are so adamant in their determination to locate
the superficial Jews, their kinsmen who are Jews by birth who
fall into an economic groove but have no link to a Jewish heritage
or to Jewish ethics and traditions.
"Goodbye, Columbus" could easily be passed up as a very
well written story, inoffensive, applicable, as we already stated,
to any other element in any other racial, religious or nationality
group. Roth and other writers who have followed this line
might claim that this is the dominant type of Jew in this
country who has abandoned his traditions and has fallen into the
:groove of mediocrity. We would certainly be admitting to total
:collapse of Jewish cultural, moral and ethical influences if we
:Were to admit to this as a generally accepted rule. Our contention
is that there is a vitally creative force in Jewish life, that there
are cultured Jews and that the mediocre are not predominant.
Nevertheless, we accept "Goodbye, Columbus," for what it
is worth—as a well written story with a good moral and an
object lesson.
What we take exception to is his story "The Conversion of
the Jews." It is this tale about a young boy who gets into
-ran argument with his Hebrew . teacher, then gets on the roof
of the synagogue - and scares the teacher, his mother and the
fire department into believing that he is ready to jump. He
thereupon "made everybody say . . . they believed in Jesus
Christ—first one at a time, then all together." He compelled
his mother and his teacher to say "God can make a child
Without intercourse." Having accomplished his purpose, he
informed his mother: "Now I can come down .. ."
It is our contention that if -a non-Jew were to write such a
story, we would be inclined to call him an anti-Semite. There
is a lack of realism in the tale, it is filthy in its intentions, it
is lacking in good taste and it insults Christians as well as Jews.
In his review of "Goodbye, Columbus," in the New Re-
public, Prof: Irving Howe made _these interesting observations:
41.4 •
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"Roth, while emotionally involved with his subject, is one
of the first American Jewish writers who finds, so far as I
can judge, almost no sustenance in the Jewish tradition.
Writers like Henry Roth, Daniel Fuchs, Delmore Schwartz
and Bernard Malamud have also dealt harshly with the life
of middle-class American Jews, but to one or another extent
the terms of their attack have been drawn from memories of
Jewish childhood and family life, from the values of the
Jewish tradition. Roth, however, finds little here to sustain
him.
"It is possible that this signifies the end of a tradition,
the closing of an arc of American Jewish experience. If so,
it is a saddening thought, since it is hard to see what new
sources of value are likely to replace the Yiddishist tradition
and American Jewish MILIEU at its best against which many
of us rebelled but which, by shaping the nature of our re-
bellion, helped to give meaning to our lives.
"Still, none of this should detract from Roth's achieve-
ment. Nor should it give an inch of encouragement to those
in the 'Jewish community' who have begun to mutter against
his book as an instance of 'self-hatred.' Even if only a fraction
of what Mr. Roth portrays is true, it ought to create the most
intense heart-searching among the very people who will soon
be hectoring him. For in his own way he is echoing the lines:
`By the waters of Babylon we sat down/And wept when we
remembered Zion.' "
Literary Conflicts:
Exposing 'Vulgar and
Embarrassing' Approaches SIOMOVitZ
By Philip
Name Eisendrath
Leading Clergyman
entire collection attesting to the brilliance of the young South
African writer's style.
The stories are about South Africans, most of them about
Jews. They are inoffensive. They reveal a deep knowledge
of the life and conflicts in South Africa, of the race struggle that
exists there, of the manner in which Jews share the views
of their white neighbors and also of the rebukes to and the
reactions against such views.
"The Zulu and the Zeide" is the story of an old man
who constantly wanders away from his home. His son employs
a Zulu who watches over the old man. They become great
friends. The Zulu doesn't know English or Yiddish, the Zeide
doesn't understand the Zulu's language, but they learn to
know what each one means. It is a warm friendship that is
established. On an afternoon of the Zulu's day off, the
Zeide asks for him, gets a gruff explanation, wanders off, is
hurt in an accident and dies. The Zulu is discharged. When
he asks for his back pay and is queried by the old man's son
"what he's going to do with the fortune he's made," the
reply comes that it was "to bring his family to this town also,"
from Zululand to' Johannesburg. It was then that the old
man's son, Harry Grossman, "started with guilt and despair."
There is brilliance in this story, as well as in the others
in this fine book. For instance, the concluding one, "The
Boss," is about a young boy who steps in to take over his
father's business. To show his authority, he picks on the
secretary who had worked in the firm for 16 years. He manages
to get her discharged on rather petty charges. The father
goes along, but disapprovingly, with an attitude intended to teach
his son a lesson. "The tenderness in his (the father's) voice
made Lionel wonder . The reader surmises that it will be
a lesson for_ Lionel not to be so rude and unjust in the future.
There is so much tenderness, so much pathos in some and
humor in other stories, that the reader wishes they were not
so brief. But he is compensated with 15 of them in a single
book—and combined they form a genuine narrative treasure.
Thus, we have two sets of short stories, both by young
Jews, about Jews, but they are vastly _different in approach.
If a non-Jew had written "The Zulu and the Zeide" it would
have the same charm as it possesses now, as the product of
a Jew. But "Goodbye, Columbus" had to be written by a Jew
to be acceptable: from the pen of a non-Jew portions of the
book, especially "The Conversion of the Jews," would be called
anti-Semitic.
In his very excellent "mid-century view of contemporary
fiction," the book entitled "American Moderns—From Rebellion
to Conformity," (Hill and Wang), Maxwell Gaismar, who. is
one of America's most distinguished literary critics, in his view
of "Saul Bellow: Novelist of the Intellectuals," discussed
assimilationist attitudes and made this interesting observation:
"The whole 'Jewish' concept in this hero (and in the
author?) is so close to paranoia and madness, so fraught
with guilt, anxiety, and fear, so lacking in warmth, humor,
and joy, that it is no longer, in the historic sense, Jewish.
There is all the Jewish guilt without the Jewish pride, there
is all the agony of life but no enjoyment, there is the heavy
vestigial morality with none of the deep or wild human
impulses which necessitated this morality."
The story and the hero are immaterial. This judgment by
Maxwell Geismar is applicable to so many of our Jewish writers
today who write in a spirit of all the Jewish guilt without the
Jewish pride. That's exactly what we mean by the contrast
offered in the stories of Philip Roth and Dan Jacobson.
Maxwell Geismar's Constructive Criticisms
Last week we paid honor to Maxwell Geismar (in a brief
review of his "The Last of the Provincials") as having "enriched
literary criticism." He has earned even warmer encomia. Our
brief reference to his "American Moderns" reveals his under-
standing of the manner in which young Jewish writers have
capitalized on Jewish issues. It also shoWs that he possesses a
sense of dignity in relation to a heritage he doesn't find it neces-
sary to shout about but which he seeks to elevate. Others have
abused and degraded their heritage. Geismar shows great respect
for it and thereby indicates the possession of dignified self-
respect.
In "American Moderns ; " Geismar emerges as a critic so fully
steeped in knowledge of the literary products of all ages that
we do not hesitate to consider him one of the top half dozen lit-
erary critics in the English-speaking world. Whether he dissects
Herman Wouk ("Marjorie") or enters into a thorough analysis
of the excellence of the work of John Hersey ("The Wall"), he
knows the ground he stands on, he understands the issues, he
applies his knowledge. with caution.
In his prologue, Geismar wrote:
DR. MAURICE EISENDRATH
An inter-faith committee of
500 religious leaders and writ-
ers have chosen Rabbi Maurice
N. Eisendrath, president of the
Union of American Hebrew
Congregations, as this year's
outstanding Clergyman for the
Religious Heritage of America.
The announcement was made
by the organization's president,
Lisle M. Ramsey, of St. Louis.
Dr. Eisendrath is the first Jew
to be so named.
Brooks Hays, former Con-
gressman from Little Rock and
immediate past president of the
Southern Baptist Convention,
was singled out as the country's
distinguished churchman.
Mrs. Theodore 0. Wedel, wife
of the Canon of the Washington
Cathedral in Washington, D.C.,
received the honor of being
named the notable Church-
woman for 1959.
All three were honored Thurs-
day at a special awards dinner
at the Hotel Statler-Hilton,
Washington, D.C.
Strauss' Chalices
of Confirmation
Growing Slimmer
Supporters and opponents of
the nomination of Lewis L.
Strauss as Secretary of Com-
merce—now before the Senate
—were urged by the American
Jewish Congress to disregard
the issue of religion in voting
on his confirmation.
"To oppose Admiral Strauss
because of his religion would
be despicable," the Congress
said in telegrams to Senate
Majority and Minority Leaders
Lyndo n JohnSon and Everett
Dirksen. "To fear to oppose
him because such opposition
might be regarded as anti-
Semitic would be equally - un-
"Literary criticism is not a path to fame or fortune in worthy of any true American."
The issue of Admiral Strauss'
the United States today. The practice of it involves something
else -- an interest in the field itself, a_ sense of necessity, or a confirmation or rejection by the
Senate "should be decided only
We can't go along with the "Yiddishist tradition" claim. Howe personal commitment."
is a strong defender of Yiddish: He is one of the leading
In his immense contributions to this field, Geismar has on its merits—that is, the best
propagators . of the strictest adherence to Yiddish by the Jewish proven that he has succeeded in acquiring the keen sense of interests of the American
masses. It is deplorable that he should be battling for what satisfaction from his dedication to literary criticism. Although people," the American Jewish
appears to be a lost cause. But there is a vaster field of his prologue is entitled "The Hostile Necessity," he emerged Congress telegram stated.
Jewish learning. There is an inexhaustible Hebraic culture, and
From present indications,
but creative.
there is an expanding Jewish literature in English. The .not hostile
Admiral Strauss' chances of
The
works
of
Dreiser,
Wolfe,
Wouk,
Salinger,
Bellow,
Jewish values that are lacking in Roth's works are obtainable. Faulkner, Styron, Algren, Dos Passos, Steinbeck, Cozzens, Hersey, having his appointment con-
The Jewish culture that Roth—and other Jewish storytellers
firmed are becoming slimmer.
who have written in his style—appear to shun is accessible. But Marquand, Lewis, Hemingway, Mailer and others are evaluated Michigan's Senators Tom Mc-
in
"American
Moderns."
Namara and Philip Hart are
the self-hatred referred' to by Prof. Howe must have influenced
In his discussion of "embarrassing but vulgar" references expected to vote against
the thinking of an able writer whose negativism is so harmful
to Wouk's works, in which he commented on a Time article, confirmation.
to Jewry. -
Vastly different is the approach of another very able young Geismar spoke of himself as "a descendant of the great (Jewish)
tradition, and with great respect for its true achievements." This NY Federation Raises Goal
story-teller, Don Jacobson, in his book of short stories pub-
lished by Atlantic-Little Brown under the title "The Zulu and is a partial indication of the Geismar dignity to which this
NEW YORK (JTA).--r Cam-
the Zeide." We had occasion some months ago to review commentator already has made reference.
paign
contributions totalling
Geismar
takes
exception
to
the
manner
in
which
Jewish
most favorably Jacobson's previous novel, "The Price of Dia-
$18,093,000
have been received
writers
"cash
in"
on
"moral
values
of
their
heritage."
Thereby
monds." His latest book is the continuation of Jacobson's
he exposes a great tragedy in literary efforts of some Jews. by the Federation of Jewish
marked talent in story-telling. "
Philanthropies of New York in
Indeed, "The Zulu and the Zeide" is a splendid book. It Thereby, also, he renders us a great service by his own advocacy its
41st annual appeal.
rnastermeee the of dianitv in the_internretation of Jewish values.