JEWISH NEWS -
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A South African Young Libertarian's Heroic
Work for Justice . . . His Jewish Reactions
We couldn't possibly hope for a timelier book than "Into
Exile" by Ronald Segal (published by McGraw-Hill) in relation
to our own struggle for just civil rights. The South African
author, now only 31, has dedicated himself from his boyhood to
E the task of aiding in the struggle against the cruelties and
C) discriminations imposed upon the. Coloured in his country. He is
now in exile. and the cover of his book explains the dramatic
approach of this able young man in these words: "The autobiog-
raphy of Ronald Segal, who fought against apartheid in South
Africa and carries on the fight today . . . though forced INTO
EXILE."
Thus, succinctly, the author's aim is revealed in the presen-
tation of the title to the book.
The fact that the autobiographer takes his readers through
the many stages of his life, incorporating experiences that reveal
the inhumanity of the events that transpired in his country, lends
merit to his story which becomes such an impassioned plea for
justice for the non-whites.
Much of Segal's activities was conducted through Africa
South, a magazine he established and financed—he had inherited
,a some money which enabled him to fulfill his ambition of serving
T.: the cause to which he has pledges his life. It was a courageous
r.T4 undertaking. because opponents of government policies of segre-
gating and turning the colored into second class citizens risked
their freedom. Segal had to be on the alert because he knew he
was being watched and every word he printed was carefully
diagnosed. Soon he was prevented from participating in public
meetings, and his magazine was his only means of expression—
until he was forced into exile.
The numerous examples of discriminatory practices recorded
in "Into Exile" are enough to cause a libertarian's hair to stand
on edge. Segal describes "the bleak interminable poverty" of the
blacks, the silencing of protests with police batons and guns.
"White supremacy," Segal writes, "was the one black in
four who died in infancy, the one in two who died before the
end of childhood; it was the seven out of every ten Africans
who lived in the richest part of the country, and yet could
never climb above the breadline; it was, most of all perhaps,
the pass laws, the silent severing of husband from wife, of
father from children, in order to provide white South Africa
with an unencumbered sheep migratory labor force. I Was a
socialist, and I could no more blind myself to the economic
shape of apartheid, than to the color of the clothing it wore."
Miscegenation, unity efforts, the curtailing of the press are
among the various issues that receive interesting treatment in
this very valuable book. Segal grew up and remains a South
African who loves his country but who wishes to see the colored
receive the human treatment due them. He has propagated the
cause of just rights for the colored at the United Nations and he
is determined to carry on his work while "in exile."
He comes from a fine, comfortable Jewish home, and "Into
Exile" enters into a discussion of the validity of Jewish loyalism.
In the course of developing his background, he describes the fears
that have shackled many Jews in South Africa so that they have
refrained from speaking up against apartheid. His book is as much
an indictment of Jewish leadership as it is of African officialdom.
Segal goes into great detail to describe how Jewish leaders
first rented then tried to break the contract for a concert in
the Jewish center that was arranged by Segal and his colored
friends. He finally secured the hall, but the impression that was
left upon him was as much of revulsion for Jews who collaborate
with officialdom as for other whites.
He conies from a Zionist home, his early training was Jewish,
his family well-to-do. Noted Jewish leaders came to their home.
There were reactions against anti-Semitism. At one point, there
was panic and some African Jews expressed a desire to escape
from a country that was being threatened by the bigotry of
Voerword, Malan and others.
Segal's opinion is that "only a South Africa finally blind to
race can give to Jewry the security that it pretends to itself
it is purchasing by silence."
Apparently the Jewish influence in the home was lost on
him. "Ain I still a Jew?," he asks, and he continues: "If Jewry
is an acknowledgment, then of course I am. My childhood was
bounded by Jewish horizons, and trying to escape from them
would be like trying to slip over the edge of the world. Yet, if
Jewry is a commitment, then I ceased to be a Jew as I crept out
of my childhood. As far back as I can remember, the religion had
no meaning for me at all, although I went dutifully to synagogue
and either edged my way into conversation with my neighbors
or bored myself with bits of translation that I could understand.
I studied Hebrew with listless dislike, but since I usually managed
to mislead my private tutor into Jewish history, where the glitter
of the kings and the blood of the martyrs provided some excite-
rnent, I reconciled myself to the requisite one hour a week . . ."
And so he continues to indicate that he was repelled by
inconsistencies and while he respected his parents' work and
their Jewish interests, while he joined in the protests against
Nazism, he remained aloof from Jewish ranks.
On the road to his exile, as he awaited means of entrance
into another land, he received a package from home. It was
Passover and it contained matzoth—as a holiday reminder from
his mother; it aroused nostalgic feelings. It was a passing phase.
"Into Exile" is a great libertarian document. Yet it leaves
the Jewish reader with serious questions relative to young Jewish
intellectuals' interests in Jewish matters. The young authors are
straying from us. Like many American young Jews, this South
African has abandoned his commitments. Does this denote an act
of disappearance of the best in our ranks? While "Into Exile"
arouses our concern over apartheid and will surely enroll all
who have a spark of humanity in them in support of Segal's
movements in defense of the blacks, the Jewish indifference creates
serious anxiety. Are we vanishing as a people in the course of
our battles for justice for others—especially now that Israel and
Zionism are realities? We, too, had better look to our laurels in
this era of forward strides towards the democratization of the
entire world.
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Ramparts (Catholic Magazine) Jewish Authors' Symposium
Jewish authors who were invited to participate in the sym-
posium on "The Jew in American Culture," in the Catholic
American
D efeatism o A
• .
I ip
Writers .. . Unrealistic
Views on Jewish Future SiOMOVitZ
o Hlls
`Apologists' for
Convicted Nazis
laymen's journal, Ramparts, were, in the main, pessimistic about
the Jewish future in this country. With only three exceptions,
the participants were skeptical about the positive approaches to
Judge Michael A. Musmanno,
Jewish traditions. The heritage of Israel emerged in a tragic .; Justice of the Supreme Court of
light from this symposium.
the State of Pennsylvania who
Fortunately. there were some positive tones in an otherwise served as Judge at the Interna-
bleak view of the Jewish status in America. Trude Weiss-Rosmarin, tional War Crimes Trial in
the noted scholar who has been honored as the outstanding Nuremburg, delivered a scathing
"woman Talmudist," gave an analysis of Jewish values that ranks attack on those who in a k e
among the most dignified presentations of the Jewish case as "apologies for Nazis who plunged
envisioned by a group of intellectuals, most of whom have become the world into
defeatists Jewishly.
an ocean of
But the chief emphasis in the discussion is on writers whose blood."
forte is sex, who are Jewish in the sense that they have learned
Justice Mus-
some Yiddish words and have misused and misapplied many of manno, w h o
them. They do not know the shtetel and can not understand it. also testified
Only the negative has appealed to them. And these, because they for the prose-
have become best-selling novel writers, are in the limelight!
cution at the
There are exceptions to the rule—and these, to a degree, Eichmann Trial
mollify resentments that may arise over unnecessary negativism. i n Jerusalem,
One of the most brilliant of our literary critics, Maxwell spoke at a
Geismar. writing in Ramparts on "The Jewish Heritage in Con- public installa-
temporary American Fiction," declares that he considers himself tion rally of
Musmanno
"an American literary critic of Jewish descent and heritage, rather Bnai Zion, American Fraternal
than a 'Jewish critic.' whatever that may mean," and he adds: Zionist Organization, held at the
"Sometimes indeed I wake up in the morning and ask New York Hilton Hotel attended
myself, half in some kind of dream-nightmare state, What IS by several hundred leaders and
a Jew? Isn't it some kind of imaginary and exotic label with members of the organization.
which civilization has imprinted on one part of the human race,
Judge Musmanno, sharply con-
just as it has fastened equally artificial and misleading tags
on all other sections of the family of man, in order for each demning prominent writers and
section to feel either superior or inferior to, or at least different educators who recently attempted
from, all the other sections which at base are so closely related to minimize the responsibility
in our common human origins and a common human destiny? of Hitler and Eichmann for the
But whatever the answer, so long as there are Jews left in the massacre of six million Jews,
world, bearing their special heritage of suffering and yes, asserted that "one of the great-
prescience, perhaps due to suffering, then I have no choice but est dangers to any civilization
is for its people to treat with
to be one."
This is the least negative of most of the declarations in the indifference a great evil which
symposium. AS a matter of fact, Geismar has consistently been once threatened its existence or,
the most positive of our prominent Jewish literary critics. Yet, worse yet, minimize its signifi-
even he, in reviewing the works of Jewish novelists, has turned cance."
to the popular rather than to the most creative. Only Ribalow
Judge Musmanno further said:
has seen fit to make mention of Maurice Samuel, the most
"It would have been impos-
noteworthy of the Jewish creative writers of our time.
sible a decade or so ago. to be-
But Ribalow in the main is more sympathetic to Jewish lieve that anyone would mini-
survivalism, and with Dr. Rosmarin and Arthur A. Cohen has mize the individual responsibil-
presented views in this most challenging symposium that give ity of the head Nazis w h
dignity to the Jewish status and do not look for the vanishing plunged the world into an ocean
elements.
of blood. And yet there are
- Cohen, who already has intrigued Jewish readers with his authors and commentators argu-
recent book "The Natural and the Supernatural Jew," makes a ing that Hitler was blamed too
point of Jewry being the dissenting force in society. This Com- much for his sins, that the Nur-
mentator shares his view that dissent in a society struggling for emburg defendants who were
light is very vital, and because we are the dissenters we are hanged were done a great in-
vital to society, no matter how anxious some of our literary justice and that Adolf E i c h-
geniuses may either wish to escape from their share in our mann was not the diabolical fig-
society or may have begun to believe that conditions have made ure every reliable account ap-
it unnecessary for them to remain a part of Jewry.
praises him to have been."
Cohen, writing in Ramparts in "The Jew, Secularity and
Justice Musmanno made ref-
Christian Culture," offers this concluding sentiment:
"It is our contention that Christian culture waned because erence to Miss Hannah Arendt's
Christians no longer desired it—that is to say, quite properly, book "Eichmann in Jerusalem"
that many Christians (or at least a sufficient number of Chris- and which he, in a book review,
tians) have ceased in the present moment to be the Christians denounced as a virtual defense
of the past. That is not to judge that the Christianity of present of Eichmann.
day Christians is less desirable, in principle, than the Chris-
"Miss Hannah Arendt, a grad-
tianity of earlier days. As a matter of fact, quite the contrary uate of the University of Hei-
is my belief. There is greater reason for Jews to trust a Chris- delberg and a teacher at several
tianity which is without other power than the power of works American universities, is an-
and grace than a Christianity which also enjoyed the coercive other person," Judge Musmanno
support of the State. For myself, as a Jew, I do not wish to said, "who does infinite damage
a Christian statecraft any more than a totalitarian secularism to the concept of historical truth
—I despise both, for Christianity is destroyed by temporal by asserting that Eichmann was
power and the creative saeculum is no longer neutral and open not fairly tried and that he
when it becomes totalitarian.
never really did hate the Jews."
"The Jewish contribution—as ancient, medieval, and mod- He
asserted that "she declares
ern Jew (not as mere Jew-by-birth, or Jew-by-pressure, or Jew-
by-sentimentality, or Jew-by-guilt-or-resentment)—can only be that Eichmann was not really a
made when the Jew is the free VIATOR of dissent. The dissent monster but probably a 'clown,'
of this Jewish self (and I speak for myself, however much I that he was a victim of 'hard
will honorably acknowledge that I believe my own position to luck,' that he never witnessed
have its share of grand truth) can only exist usefully for the an execution (even though he
benefit of all men and to the glory of God if it is offered to himself admitted having done
a free culture, however Christian, Buddhist, or Muslim it might so at his trial), that he followed
be in generality. To the Christian, my Jewish dissent would some of the footsteps of the
warn against an assumption that the First Coming of The great philosopher Kant, and that
Christ is the same as if He had Come Again—that society is whatever he did he did, as far
still unredeemed, that men are still idolaters, that war, dis- as he could see, as a law-abiding
honor, meanness, and vanity still render the relations of men citizen."
brutal and cruel. To the Buddhist, my Jewish dissent would be _ Judge Musmanno termed these
that his Stoic self-centeredness, whatever the wisdom it may views in Miss Ahrendt's book
yield the dissolving self, is arrogantly solipsistic in its disin- "as dangerous nonsense," de-
terest in sharing that wisdom directly, actively, passionately claring that "all this dangerous
with those who become too patient or passive before history. nonsense, plus scores of other
To the Muslim, my Jewish dissent would be against a tradition equally grotesque conclusions,
that has come to make faith a political cause at a moment in would hurt no one if Hannah
history, when the insolvency of nationalism is all too evident Arendt were a provincial, back-
to others.
woods instructress, but she has
"And to all cultures, large and small, this minority culture an international reputation, she
of Jews can do little more nor little less than to continue to writes with a style designed to
speak over and over again those ancient words, 'Not by might, dazzle and there are many who
not by power, but by My spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.' act on dazzle and not sense."
(Zech. 4:6)"
Justice Musmanno was pre-
The problem created by the vanishing factors in our ranks
emerges in a frank series of expressions in Ramparts. We should sented with a citation attesting
be grateful that the issue was brought forward so open-heartedly to the planting in his name of
by eminent writers. We would have been happier if men like a grove of 1,000 Eucalyptus
Maurice Samuel had participated in the discussion. We would trees in the American Freedom
surely have had another very positive viewpoint from him. As Forest in Jerusalem in recogni-
t stands, the Ramparts series of essays emerges as a valuable tion "of his outstanding services
guide for further study and additional evaluations. Much good and leadership in behalf of hu-
can and should come out of it to guide us towards bringing manity and justice to all
our youth closer to our people.
peoples."