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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS-- Friday, May 26, • 196 1

v4

Story of Michelangelo, Creator of
David and Moses Sculptures, Told
ill Stone's 'Agony and Ecstasy'

Michelangelo Buonarroti's asso-
ciation with Jews and his exper-
iences while creating two of his
famous sculptures, David and
Moses, are described in "The
Agony and the Ecstasy: The Bi-
ographical Novel of Michelan-
gelo," by Irving Stone, published
by Doubleday.
Stone has many successes to
his credit, notably the novel
"Lust for Life," dealing with the
life of Vincent Van Gogh. The
664-page "The Agony and the
Ecstasy" adds to his glory as a
biographical novelist. It is packed
full of information he had gath-
ered from all the writings by and
about Michelangelo, the great
Florentine genius of the 15th
century who was sculptOr,
painter, poet, and who had many
controversies and conflicting deal--
ings with statesmen, and who had
many dealings with the Popes of
his time for whom he did many
of his paintings.
While Moses is his most
famous work, there is much more
in the Irving Stone story about
"the David" created by Michel-
angelo. The great artist-poet-au-
thor constantly studied the coun-
tenances that might resemble
Jesus, and Stone gives this ac-
count about Michelangelo's meet-
ing with Jews:

"He went into the Jewish
, quarter, wanting to draw He-
braic faces so that he could
reach a visual understanding of
how Christ might have looked.
The Jewish section was in Tras-
tevere, near the Tiber at the
churcl- of San Francesco a
Ripa. The colony had been
small until the Spanish Inqui-
sition of 1492 drove many Jews
into Rome. He most
, as
well tre
part, they w
a-
a 'remind of
Christia
ment h a
gifted me rs
many
were f inent in th
as p cians, musici
ers.
to
e men d'
hey
sketching
t no
nt about t
d to
ne coul
e. He
ome to
Rabbi
as told t
on Sat-
Meizi at th

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TS JETS JETS JETS JETS JE

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urday afternoon. Michelangelo
found the rabbi in the room of
study, a gentle old man with a
white beard and luminous eyes,
robed in black gabardine with a
skullcap on his head. He was
reading from the Talmud with
a group of men from his con-
gregation. When Michelangelo
explained why he had come,
Rabbi Meizi replied gravely:
" 'The Bible forbids us to
bow down to or to make graven
images. That is why our cre-
ative people give their time to
literature, not to painting or
sculpture.'
" 'But, Rabbi Meizi, you
don't object to others creating
works of art?'
"Not at all. Each religion
has its own tenets.'
q 'I am carving a Pieta from
white Carrara marble. I wish
to make JeSus an authentic
Jew. I cannot accomplish this
if you will not help me.'
"The rabbi said thoughtfully,
`I would not want my people to
get in trouble with the Church.'
" 'I am working for the Car-
dinal of San Dionigi. I'm sure
he would approve.'
" 'What kind of models would
you prefer?'
" 'Workmen. In their mid-
thirties. Not bulky laborers, but
sinewy men. With intelligence.
And sensitivity.'
"Rabbi Melzer smiled at him
with infinitely old but merry
eyes.
" 'Leave me your address. I
will send you the best the quar-
ter has to offer'."

Hits Veterans' Editor
for Asking ZOA to Quit

CHICAGO, (JTA) --- Hershel
Auerbach, a vice-president of

the Zionist Organization of Chi-
cago, demanded an apology from
the official publication of the
Jewish War Veterans of Illinois
for an editorial urging the Zion-
ist Organization of America to
dissolve.
The publication, the Voice,
had proposed this action, so
that "Zionism may maintain the
good name it still has as a
result of its early efforts." The
editorial criticized Zionists as
members of the "Wailing Wall
Battalion" and asked .Thy they
did not go to Israel or send
their investments there.
Auerbach, in a letter to Ed-
ward Fleischmann, editor of the
publication, called the editorial
"a disgrace to the Department
of Illinois, to every Jewish vet-
eran, whether Zionist or not,
and to every Jew in general "
He added in his lett
"I, for one, . would
p my
membership in th
WV im-
mediately if I th g
at in
any way" the w
of the edi-
torial "represe
the policy,
thinking, attit e or princ
of our orga ation."

U.S. Chemical Firm to Build
$2 Million Plant Near Haifa

CHICAGO, (JTA) — Details
of the construction of a $2,-
000,000 citric acid plant near
Haifa, Israel, by the Miles
Chemical Company, a division
of Miles Laboratories in Elk-
hart, Indiana, were disclosed
here by Howard F. Roderick,
president of the company, who
was the guest speaker at a
dinner-meeting of the Com
bined Jewish Appeal of Chica

Negro Organist Wr es
Music for Synago e

PATERSON, N.J., (JT
Worshippers at Congregatio nai
Jeshurun here heard the tern '5
cantor and choir perform a one-
and-one-half hour religious serv-
ice, the music for which was
composed by the temple's Negro-
Baptist organist. The organist,
0-year-old William Farley Smith,
e his debut as a composer
wish ,liturgical music after
g for six months with the
temple's cantor, Joseph
in creating a musical set-
a modern idiom for the
onal responses during the
ce.

Roderick noted that the new
plant, scheduled for comple-
tion in the spring of next year,
will have an annual capacity,
of 1,500 to cent of
which is s ed for ex t.
Amon
eas
d by
hind
Rod
which were
th
pany's decision to build
e . aifa plant, w e att ctive
ncentives offer
e
warm
raeli
climat in
-
is acid-
consu pti
g h soft
od export
drinks, a
by favorable
potential ov
trade rel
established by
Israel w .
2 other nations.

B NAI

B RITH

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Later, when his Moses was
completed: "He was delighted to
find a number of the Jews of
Rome, some of whom reported
that they were sons or grandsons
of the men who had posed for
his first Pieta, asking permission
to come to the studio to see
the Moses."
Michelangelo made deep stud-
ies of his characters and bf the
events surrounding them: "At
night he read by candlelight in
Dante and in the Old Testament,
looking for a mood and a heroic
theme."
The story of the making of
"the David" is in itself a major
part of the romance of the lif
of Michelangelo. The evaluatio
of Michelangelo's search for D
vid's characteristics is • withou
doubt one of the supreme po
lions of this excellent bdok. To
quote Stone:

"David had to stand. alone.
Even as he had stood on the
plains of the Valley of the
Terebinth .. . David pictured
after Goliath could be no one
but the biblical David, a special
individual . . This was the
David he had been seeking,
caught at exultant height ... "

Then there was "the Moses":
"He was seeking the universal
Moses who knew the ways of man
and God; the Lord's servant on
earth, the voice of His conscience.
The Moses who had been called
up to the heights of Mount Sinai,
had hidden his face bedause he
dared not look upon the open
sight of God, and received from
Him the carved tablets of the
Ten Commandments." The great
sculptor was told: "This Moses
alone is sufficient to do honor
to Pope Julius. No man could
want a more glorious monument."
Michelangelo included Rachel
and Leah and other biblical' char-
acters among his imperishable
works.
His life, his loves, his devo-
tion to his art,, are admirably de-
scribed in "The Agony and the
Ecstasy." Irving Stone has pro-
duced another great biographical
novel in this story of Michelan-
gelo Buonarroti.

Who without books, essays to

learn,
Draws water in a leaky urn.
Austin Dobson.

nily-
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