Purely Commentary
Recollections of a Young American Jewess
Childhood Linked to 'What Is a Jew' Debate
Having begun in Israel, the debate over the question of
who or what is a Jew continues in many quarters and is intro-.
duced in one of the most interesting confessionals written by a
young Jewess. Janet Kern, who was for 12 years the popular
TV-Radio editor of the Chicago American, who gained fame as
an advertising. executive and whose columns Were syndicated by
International News Service, tells the story of her youth, in an
assimilated JeWish home, in "Yesterday's Child," published by
J. B. Lippincott Co. (E. Washington Sq., Philadelphia 5).
This book has many charming aspects. It is replete with
humor—at her own, het father's and her mother's expense. It
relates the many interesting qualities of her deceased mother,
from whom she must have learned the art of cooking and baking
which is now her major hobby in the home she keeps for her
father. She is most critical of her father. and of the habits with
which he dominated her young life, but his sense of justice and
his rejection of prejudices emerge time and time again, crediting
him with the qualities of a loved man.
These elements in the story are minor, however, in relation
to the major issue: that of the Jewish background of the author.
At the very outset she informs her readers: "What marked the
Kerns most distinctively was the fact that they were Jews."
Miss Kern's mother descended from German Jews. She was
born in Chicago where her parents met and married. "You
hardly could find a more Germanic family name than Kern,
nor purposefully Hapsburgian first names than Father's Maxi-
millian and those of some of his sisters."
Her father hailed from a Hasidic family, but he was educated
in a Jesuit-operated school in Galicia and believed the Jesuit
schools (he referred to all Catholics as Jesuits) were the best
and he sent Janet to one of them, with an unusual development
to be related later.
The Kern parents had no Jewish affiliations. They were
thoroughly assimilated—until later years, when Hitler awoke
them, when rental restrictions were imposed upon them, when
prejudice struck as it often does!
Janet refers to her mother's childhood experience, when she
attended a Reform temple school and the rabbi, at a Passover
party, jokingly told the class: "You go home and eat matzo if
you want; I'm going home and eat bread."
That settled it for her. "Born with an innate sense of in-
tegrity," Janet's mother revolted and resolved never again to
set foot in a temple. It was not until much later, in the Hitler
era, that the Kern family turned to the synagogue again and sent
Janet to a Jewish school.
In the interim, many interesting episodes are recorded. One
of them relates to Janet's experiences in the Catholic school.
During a lunch period, as she was calmly packing away a sand.
wich, "the nun monitoring my aisle paused and inquired in a
shocked tone: 'Are you eating bread?' Of course I was eating
bread. I couldn't imagine a sandwich without bread. 'You
shouldn't be eating bread duting Passover,' the nun continued
with great solemnity. This came as puzzling news to me. 'Every-
one else is eating bread, Sister,' I obsetved. The nun seemed
shocked as she retorted: 'But you're Jewish! Jews don't eat bread
during Passover.' "
Janet continues to relate her puzzlement: "Now I really
was mystified. I could hardly wait for school to end so I could
ask Mother what the Sister was talking about. What is this
Passover? And why no bread? What is Jewish? And am I it?
Mother said Yes, I was Jewish. She was a little vague in her
• explanation of just what Jewish means. I gathered that this was
some sort of carry-over from my grandparents and that it
carried over with it something called restrictions. There would
be places I wouldn't be welcome and people who wouldn't want
to associate with me. But Mother said•I mustn't let this bother
me, because it was unimportant and, besides, there undoubtedly
would be places and people I wouldn't want much to do with
anyway.
"As for Passover, Mother said it was a Jewish holiday during
which some people ate nothing but matzo instead of bread and—
much more interesting—they also ate some perfectly delicious
Passover cookies. While she talked, Mother drove towards a
Jewish shopping district where she bought me a big box full
of Passover cookies. Many years would pass before I would cease
to eat bread during Passover, but from that first-grade year • on,
it became an annual custom for Mother to put in a good supply
of Passover cookies, along with the Lenten hot cross buns."
But Janet from then on, from her discovery that she was
Jewish, began to ask questions. Her parents still gave her "vague,
uninformative answers which only served to whet my. interest."
What an impressive lesson this is that only those who are
informed about Jewish things, only the children who understand
their background, will be able to face serious challenges in life!
Throughout her interesting book, Janet Kern recounts the
events and experiences that brought her family back to the
Jewish fold, that recreated in them an interest in Judaism.
As Janet moved into adolescence, she was puzzled by "the
seemingly insoluble riddle, "What is a Jew?' " Her comments on
the question are among the most thought-provoking in her entire
book. To quote Miss Kern:
"This preoccupation (of being concerned with the "What
IS a Jew?" question), and the constant, heated discussions
which it entailed, were as mystifying to my bemused parents
as my previously dishonest-seeking attitude had been. But to
my friends, and to me, this question was vital in a manner and
to a degree which it never had been to our parents because
we had been made so sharply aware that we were Jews. We
were Jews—but not by choice; Jews—but not by religion;
. Jews—but not by nationality, culture, or language. We were
consumed by the desire to know just what it was that we so
indubitably were!
"Nothing which our parents said seemed to illumine the
confusion; nothing which the rabbi said seeme.d to prov tde an
indisputable answer. We had grown un watching the failure
of the adult world's diverse approaches to being Jewish. One
by one, those various adult solutions to the. Jewish Problem
had exploded right before our eyes. None had exploded more
completely or more painfully than the simplest, and most
wide-spread, solution—my own parents' solution of ignoring
the whole subject. For the rise of Hitler and the sudden
Only a Well-Informed
From F W
Youth
r ui s l t1 ra Bta i n Kept
s
By Philip German Pastor Calls
Slomovitz Upon All Churches to
Fight Anti-Semitism
popularity of the Yiddish author Sholem Asch, among other
things, had aroused the curiosity of the non-Jewish world, too.
Suddenly, Gentile. classmates were asking amiably interested
questions about Jews and Judaism—and my friends and I were
chagrined and humiliated to find ourselves without answers.
" 'If only our parents hadn't been so intent on ignoring
the whole. thing . . .' we consoled each other in the face of
our constant embarrassment at our own ignorance.
" 'How could sensible people imagine that you can just
IGNORE something so important?' I would moan loudly, to the
obvious bemusement of my startled parents.
" 'Do you know, I never even SAW a Bible until I got to
high school,' one outraged teenager would declare with disgust,
and the rest of us rushed to top her tale of woeful ignorance.
" 'I never saw one. until they gave them to us at Con-
firmation,' I boasted, 'and even that one is hidden in a drawer.
I wouldn't DARE put it on my parents' bookshelves!'
" 'Who said you couldn't put the Bible on our bookshelves?'
Mother demande.d tartly, the evening of that particular ado-
lescent discussion.
" 'Nobody had to tell me,' I countered lamely.
" 'Where is it?' Mother demanded. 'Bring it here right
now!'
"I hesitated. 'But mother ..
" 'You heard me,' Mother snapped. 'Bring it here and
MACH SCHNELL!' Reluctantly, I brought it, and Mother
promptly installed my Bible in the biggest bookcase in Father's
den. I promptly made a quiet pledge to make sure that
Mother wasn't eavesdropping on future discussions which my
classmates might hold at our house. In the den, my Bible was
of no use whatsoever, for I certainly wasn't going to let my
parents find me peeking into a Bible. Secretly, I was extremely
curious about the contents of that volume, in which, I figured
there just might be a clue to that illusiVe, but increasingly
important, definition of a Jew.
"Nowadays, when 'identifying with the group' and 'together-
ness' and the fashion of religiosity hold sway, it is difficult
to recall how confusing it was for the adolescents of a genera-
tion ago to find themselves sharply identified with a group
they never had known and still could not understand. We knew
no more about what we were, or what we were supposed to
believe or do than did the Gentile friends and classmates who
came to us for information. But we did know, from observation,
that those of our Jewish classmates who most often complained
of being victims of anti-Semitism and discrimination also were
the ones most inclined to deny or ignore the fact that they
were Jewish. Often, the parents of such students were openly
puzzled and angry over the discrimination which their children
suffered in a school and community where so many Jewish
youngsters were now 'picked on.'
"The parents were confused, but the other children usually
were not . No generation of Jews ever was so well-equipped
as we were to sense and understand that, in non-Jewish eyes,
the Jew who denies being .one, or admits it only reluctantly,
is an enigma; more of an encouragement to animosity and
anti-Semitism than all the professional hate-mongers combined.
No generation of Jews was so well-equipped as we were to
realize that, at his most frankly confessing, a Jew is necessarily
a mystery. How could he blame the non-Jewish world for
wondering just exactly what a Jew is, or believes, or practices?
After all, WE were mystified and wondering over this same
question! Small wonder that, in years soon to come, a new State
of Israel would have to struggle hard to find an accurate, legal
definition of a Jew—and finally would be forced to settle for
the hardly definitive makeshift: 'A Jew is anyone who says
he is.'
"But such a definition would not satisfy the. innumerable
pre-World War II youngsters like me, to whom history on the
hoof has made it eminently clear that a Jew, very often, is
one who says he is NOT.
"No generation of small children ever searched more
diligently for legendary buried treasure than we searched, as
adolescents, for a definition of what we were. We. thought about
it; we debated it; we discussed it. In my neighborhood, we even
extended the then customary nine years of religious school
classes to cover the remainder of our high school years, and
devoted those classes largely to the search for a definition of
ourselves. This was a situation hard on our parents and harder
still on the local rabbi, whom we pressed into service as the
teacher of our religious high schooling; or, as it turned out,
the modarator of our heated adolescent debates . . ."
There is much to be said about Miss Kern's book, about her
Father the Doctor and his idiosyncrasies; about the home life
and the manner in which Father either kept the library to him-
self or interfered with Janet's studies. There is much to review
about the Mother who was so assimilated until the wheel turned
in favor of the synagogue and Jewish affiliation.
But the emphasis in• this review is on the very long quota-
tion, used here without apologies for its length because it pre-
sents such a challenge to those who do not enlighten themselves
first and then their children, so that they may know their Jewish
background; it presents a challenge to rabbis who are not suc-
ceeding in making their calling understood.
This Commentator doesn't hesitate to say that he intends
this review, and its lengthy quotation, as a challenge also to book
reviewers who make such a fad of interpreting books that are so
sexy that they sometimes reek from the repelling filth. Why
don't these book reviewers discuss with their audiences Jewish
classics, the literature that has enriched our heritage?
Will our book reviewers take a book like. Janet Kern's and -
turn it into a textbook, especially for young parents, so that
they may be led along a path of proper training for their chil-
dren who must grow up without inhibitions, affirming their
Jewishness with dignity—yes, WITH DIGNITY, if they wish
to avoid the term WITH PRIDE?
Janet Kern offers a good lesson for a generation of puzzled
Jews, some of whom may be saying they are not Jews, but are
themselves marked as Jews. She has written an excellent, a very
humorous, and at the same time a very instructive story. Doctor
Kern, her father, who for a time was responsible for conditions
so sadly deplored in "Yesterday's Child," now is undoubtedly
proud of his Janet who now keeps house for him and loves to
cook and bake. Janet has redeemed the Kern name.
NEW YORK, (JTA) — Dean
Heinrich Gruber, anti-Nazi Ger-
man Evangelical pastor, called
upon churches and all Chris-
tians to wage a battle against
anti-Semitism.
In an address before the
American Christian Association
for Israel at a luncheon at the
Inter-Church Center, the clergy-
man urged that Christians set
aside a special day of atonement
"for the nightmare that 'anti-
Semitism has brought to the
Jewish people, over the ages,"
suggesting "Kristallnacht" on
Nov. 9 as an appropriate occa-
sion. On this day in 1938 the
Nazis in Germany launched
their attack upon the syna
gogues.
Dean Gruber, who was thrown
into concentration camps for
aiding Jews, proposed also that
Christians support Israel, a na-
tion which he said was "born
out of the recent holocaust and
out of the sufferings of past
centuries."
"What would have happened
to the victimized Jews of our
day—in Europe, the Middle East
and North Africa—had there
not been Israel's open doors of
compassion?" he asked. He said
that many Christians do not
understand Israel's vital role in
the world but at the same time
concern for Israel should not
"diminish our compassion for
the needs of the Arab peoples,
who fortunately have nations
and lands and resources with
which to work out their salva-
tion."
Dean Gruber urged that West
Germany establish diplomatic
relations with Israel immedi-
ately, adding that "considera-
tion for Arab countries should
not prevent us from doing that
which we recognize as a moral
responsibility." H e disclosed
that he would lead a group of
German Christians to Israel
next-month "so that they may
come to dedicate themselves to
aid the Jewish people and the
people of Israel."
Waterbury Federation
Backs Opponent of
Religion in Schools
WATERBURY, Conn., (JTA)
—The Jewish Federation of
Waterbury came to the defense
of a former Federation presi-
dent, Howard R. Matzkin, who
has been attacked here for al-
legedly advancing a "J e wish
viewpoint" in his capacity as a
member of the Waterbury School
Board.
Matzkin, who has been a mem-
ber of the School Board for
three y e a r s has consistently
voted in the Board against per-
mitting Catholics to use public
schools for religious instruction.
In one case, according to the
Connecticut Jewish Ledger, a
Catholic parish sought to use a
public school for masses and
confessions.
The Board has consistently out-
voted Matzkin, by margins of 8
to 1 and 9 to 1. In recent weeks
he h a s received "threatening
telephone calls and vile letters,"
the newspaper reported.
Matzkin was also criticized in
the local morning newspaper
which stated that his opposition
to the use of public schools for
religious purposes" will not pro-
mote overall community feel-
ings." On the other hand, the
local evening newspaper, pub-
lished by the same corporation,
expressed its opinion editorially
that Matzkin "is entirely sincere
in his protests, and believes a
principle is at stake."
The Federation's board of di-
rectors voted a resolution sup-
porting Matzkin's stand and re-
jecting the editorial view "that
any individual or group must re-
main silent in order to be toler-
ated, or that 'good community
feelings' must be paid for by
repression of differences."