Paul Jacobs Judged of Low Stature After Reader Finishes 'Is Curly Jewish?'
"Curly" once wrote a book and
had conducted a campaign against
David Dubinsky. He was irked by
the labor leader's "Yiddish ac-
cent."
This chap also has an aversion
to kashrut. He has been consis-
tently anti-Zionist (without ever
understanding the movement).
„ He hails from a Reform Jewish
background, and his family appar-
ently wanted to be Jewishly affi-
liated. Not "Curly." "Curly" was
. and apparently remains an in-
dividualist.
"Curly" was a "Trotskyist"
(Trotskyite?) and was active in
-. the movement. He flirted with a
lot of things, became a labor
leader, later secured a job with
the American Jewish Committee.
Lately, "Curly" was troubled by
his Jewishness. He wrote a book,
"Is Curly Jewish?" which some re-
viewers, including (amazingly) the
N. Y. Times' chief daily writer on
:
books, are acclaiming. Rut so have
other books that have been ob-
noxious been hailed by non-Jews
who should have known better.
This book, published by Atheneum
(162 E. 38th, NY16), was publiciz-
ed considerably in advance of its
appearance and the intriguing
title no doubt will create curiosity
about it.
Who is "Curly?" He is Paul
Jacobs. The subtitle to "Is Cur-
ly Jewish?" is: "A political self-
portrait illuminating three turbu-
lent decades of social revolt-
1935-1965." In his prologue
Jacobs explains:
"This book is not a history of
the thirties, worthwhile though
that might be. And it is not
really an autobiography, either:
such a book would interest only
a few people. Instead, I have
tried to describe how the period
from the thirties to the middle
sixties looks from a special radi-
041110.04
■ 04M1.041,1111.41•111 ■ 041 ■ 04 ■ 1•11-01
ii
Smolar's
'Between You
. . and Me
(Copyright, 190, JTA, Inc.)
(Copyright,
MILITARY INTELLIGENCE: Now that the national elections in
Israel are over and the country has returned "back to normalcy" the
question of security is again uppermost in the minds of top Israeli
leaders . . . Especially since France has now joined the countries
supplying Egypt with modern weapons .. Until now, France was the
chief supplier of military jets and supersonic interceptors to Israel,
while the Soviet Union has been the prime supplier of military hard-
ware to Egypt ... Now Egypt will get warplanes from both countries,
while Israel is not dealing with the Soviet Union which is outspokenly
on the side of the Arabs . . . Even before France had agreed to sell
modern warplanes to Egypt, Nasser had the upper hand over Israel
in importing jets and bombers and surface-to-air missiles and sub-
marines . . . According to information reaching the United States,
Egypt had imported during the past 10 years about 200 jet fighters, as
compared with Israel buying 100 such planes . . Egypt had during
the same period also imported about 100 tactical bombers against
Israel's acquisition of 25 such bombers . . . Israel has the upper hand
over Egypt in supersonic interceptors by acquiring during the last 10
years 70 such interceptors against Egypt's 50, but Egypt has secured 25
intermediate range bombers with Israel having no such bombers at
all . . . Egypt has acquired in the course of the last 10 years 10 times
as many batteries of surface-to-air missiles as Israel did . • . While
Israel seems to have no surface-to-air missiles. Egypt has built about
250 such installations with the help of German engineers . . In
submarines, Egypt has four times as many as Israel, according to
American information . . . Under such circumstances, it is no
wonder that Israel is on the alert, although all indications point to
the fact that Nasser, being not so popular now in the Arab world, as
well as among his own population, will not dare to start a war against
Israel for some time to come.
ISRAEL ECHOES: The common front of the Arab countries against
Israel is now considered broken down since the recent Casablanca con-
ference of Arab rulers who found it impossible to agree on common
action ... At that conference Morocco supported the stand of Tunisia's
Habib Bourguiba who demonstratively absented himself from the
parley and who has been attempting to shake off Nasser's domination
of the Arab world . . . Seeing the signs, other Arab rulers followed
suit and voiced their own disagreements with Nasser . . . In trouble
-- at home and losing ground among rulers of other Arab countries,
)Nasser now has to go slow . . . However, Syria and Iraq would like to
fight Israel now, regardless of chances . . . The Syrians with the sup-
port of the Iraqis, have therefore engaged in guerrilla warfare against
Israel on their own .... The instrument of their private war is El Fatah,
the military arm of an activist group which was founded in Iraq some
years ago, and has been adopted by the Syrians for their attacks on
Israel . . . The El Fatah is reportedly recruited from among Palestine
refugees, and has concentrated during the last few weeks in attempts
to blow up water installations inside Israel, usually near the borders
of Jordan and Lebanon . . . These two countries have been warned
by Israel of retaliation ,and Washington. has been notified by Israel
that these attacks will not be tolerated . . . King Hussein of Jordan
is especially in a difficult position because the saboteurs come into
Israel from his country, so he is responsible for them . . . He denies
responsibility, but there is doubt whether he is actually doing all in
his power to stop the sabotage activities of the El Fatah ... He would
like to act against Israel, and says so in his public speeches, but
actually he feels he is not strong enough . . . He has now started a
water diversion project on his territory to divert Jordan waters from
reaching Israel, and for this he was promised by other Arab countries
a sufficient air umbrella against Israeli reprisals . . . The other Arab
states, especially the oil-rich sheikhdoms on the Persion Gulf, seem
to have provided him with funds to buy two squadrons of supersonic
Mirage aircraft from France, which President de Gaulle is apparently
willing to sell to him . . . So Israel must after all not be deluded by
the rift between Nasser and the other Arab countries . . • Especially
since the Arab lands, including Egypt, recently signed a pact calling
for a military build-up of United Arab forces to the tune of
$400,000,000.
r
1
cal view and to discover whether
that view is related to how I
feel about being a Jew. Curly is
me, of course, although he exists
only in my imagination, where
he is 17 years old and six foot
one, with lots of wavy hair —
unlike me, in my middle forties,
five foot six and bald."
But the book is autobiographi-
cal. It goes into many sordid des-
criptions of sex urges. It describes
his self-hatred as a Jew which, one
is led to believe, was somewhat
mitigated by his visits in Israel.
But even on this score one won-
ders why Histadrut should have
gone out of the way to provide a
free trip to this chap who knew
nothing about the Zionist move-
ment, who was the antagonist of
the great cause, who may or not
have tried to find himself the
Jewish way but who leaves us in
doubt even now that he has cover
ed the Eichmann trial, has been to
Israel more than once, apparently
still fails to understand the merits
of Jewish living.
There is this to be said in
Jacobs' favor: he is frank about
matters relating to himself. For
instance, mentioning a party he
attended in Washington, he ad-
mits that Supreme Court Justice
Felix Frankfurter, who was
there, berated him mercilessly.
If it was on a matter dealing
with Jews and Jewishness, Curly
must have earned the rebuke!
Why Midstream should delegate
one with a negative attitude on
Jews and Judaism to write for it
is beyond our understanding.
And when a national magazine
delegated him to write on • the
Shin Bet security activities in
Israel, "Curly" reports in his book
that a young girl who had typed
the manuscript for him judged it
as being "bad for Israel . . . and
there's enough anti-Semitism in
the world already." Whereupon
"Curly" states:
"The article wasn't published,
but not for her reasons. It was
a bad article, confused, unsure
and chaotic."
That's exactly how we judge his
"Is Curly Jewish?"
There is a paragraph in his book
that is worth quoting. Jacobs
wrote, just before reporting an
his stenographer's comment:
" 'Don't act like a kike,' my par-
ents used to tell me. 'Don't make
rishis,' (a) plant owner in New
York said; and a critical article
about Dubinsky becomes, to the
Jewish Daily Forward, an at-
tack upon the 'six million people
slaughtered by the German Nazi
beasts.' "
We don't know whether we'd go
that far. But his book does indi-
cate a lack of sympathy even dur-
ing the Nazi regime commensurate
with the tragedy: else "Curly"
might have risen to six foot one.
His entire book (with no apolo-
gies to Histadrut or to any one
else who encouraged him) lacks
understanding of the Zionist and
of the Jewish position. He indi-
cated it during the Suez campaign
and on other occasions. His book
is full of conceit. It is a work indi-
cating that he suffers from a com-
plex and is unable to overcome it.
He remains five foot six.
—P. S.
$114,000 Federal Grant
For Yeshiva U. Center
NEW YORK—The Information
Retrieval Center—a clearing-house
for information concerning disad-
vantaged children launched last
year by Yeshiva University's Fer-
kauf Graduate School of Education
—will be expanded under a $114,-
000 grant awarded by the U.S. Of-
fice of Education to Prof. Edmund
W. Gordon, chairman of the depart-
ment of educational psychology
and guidance at the school.
The Center is located in the new
facility of the Ferkauf Graduate
School of Education, 55 Fifth Ave.
Is now associated with them . . . And invites
you to stop in to see him !
2 Blocks East of Southfield
Romanian Torah Scroll
Given to New Synagogue
at NY's Kennedy Airport
(Direct JTA Teletype Wire
to The Jewish News)
NEW YORK — The new Inter-
national Synagogue at Kennedy
Airport received Monday a 200-
year-old Torah scroll from a
Bucharest synagogue, described as
the first allowed to be sent by the
Communist country to the United
States.
That description was given by
Dr. Charles H. Kremer, president
of the Romanian Jewish Federation
of America, in presenting the scroll
to Rabbi Israel Mowshowitz, chair-
man of the board of the synagogue,
and Rabbi Harold Gordon, execu-
tive vice president of the New
York Board of Rabbis.
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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Friday, November 19, 1965-11
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Beautiful, charming, exciting, the 24 year old star of Israel's "MY FAIR LADY" has been hailed as
"fantastic" by critics and audiences alike.
WHAT'S HER N ME?
For the answer turn to page 7