Purely Commentary

Brutal Personality Squabble . . . The 'Resistance' Issue,
Vatican Declaration Controversy, Leadership Problem

Hannah Arendt wrote a book on the Eichmann case that created
much resentment. Her attitude on Jewish leadership, the manner in
which the trial was conducted in Jerusalem, her evaluations of the
extent of Jewish resistance to Nazism, raised issues so serious that
the eminent Dr. Jacob Robinson, a distinguished legal authority,
authored an entire book ("And the Crooked Shall Be Made Straight")
in which he replied to Miss Arendt's arguments point by point. Walter
Laqueur reviewed the Robinson book favorably in the New York
Review of Books. (The Robinson book also was reviewed favorably
in The Jewish News, Nov. 20). That gave Miss Arendt a chance to
reply, and in a scathing three-page letter to the New York. Review
she treats both Laqueur and Robinson so miserably that he resorts
to venom and her vindictive bitterness has seldom been paralleled in
similar discussions of vital issues.
There is too evident a personality clash to justify the vitriolic
tone of the long Arendt letter, and the reputable record of Dr. Robin-
son does not permit acceptance of the slurs leveled at him. But of
primary concern is the frequent reference by Miss Arendt to "Estab-
lishments," Israeli and Jewish, and her repetitive insinuations that Jews
did not resist.
"noi
At one point in her letter, Miss Arendt declared that .
knowing what he is doing, Mr. Robinson raises one of the most
disturbing 'problems' of the whole issue, a problem I had been
careful not to raise because it was not raised at the trial and
therefore was not my business; the conduct of the European
rabbinate during the catastrophe. It seems there was not one
rabbi who did what Domprost Bernhard Lichtenberg, a Catholic
priest, or Propst Heinrich Grueber, a Protestant minister—had
tried to do—to volunteer for deportation."
This is a shabby charge. Rabbis carried guns when they were pro-
curable, men of faith resisted when that was possible. But this is
a story, while oft repeated, yet to be told in its entirety.
What concerns us at the moment is the condemnation of Jewish
leadership. The "Establishments" have suddenly become issues, have
emerged as objects for ridicule and attack. If these criticisms are
justified, the Jewish community should look into it carefully—if there
is a truly well-organized Jewish community, especially in the United
States.

The Local Angle: Are There TEN Qualified Leaders?

Jewish students. Second genera-

tion Jews at this university are
not as likely to interdate or con-
sider marriage as are the first

Gabrilowitsch brings back recollection of her father, her grandfather
—her mother who died in San Diego on Nov. 19, 1962.
Three weeks before the death, after a lingering illness, of Ossip
Gabrilowitsch, the world-famous composer, orchestra director and
pianist—in 1936—this reporter interviewed Mrs. Gabrilowitsch, who
was widely known as Clara Clemens, the singer, the daughter of Mark
Twain.
Mrs. Gabrilowitsch was a half hour late for the appointment at
the Gabrilowitsch home, 611 Boston Blvd. She had been at the hospital
visiting her husband. She was upset about his condition. Then she
evidenced special concern about her daughter.
It was in the early years of Hitlerism, but it was already evident
that the Nazi ruler of Germany was determined to destroy the Jews,
that the Fuehrer would not spare her daughter.
"I am worried about Nina," she told me. "She is half Jewish. Hitler
is not limiting his venom at full Jews, but also at half and quarter Jews.
What'll happen to her — the danger is mounting and there are so
many Hitlerites in this country!"
There was little to say to comfort her, except to express hope
that the American principle of fair play, of justice, would not permit
the German venom to invade our land.
It was while I was waiting for Mrs. Gabrilowitsch that I browsed
among her books and found the famous 24-volume set of Mark Twain's
works. Each volume contained an individual inscription to his daugh-
ter. It was a fascinating collection and I asked Mrs. Gilbrilowitsch's
personal secretary, Mrs. Phylils Harrington, if I could have a set of
the inscriptions. She promised to send them to me, if Mrs. Gabrilo-
witsch consented — which she did. Within three days I had the entire
set and it was the basis for special articles in Real America and the
Chronicle I edited at the time.
There is much to be said about the interview I had with Mrs.
Gabrilowitsch, about Mark Twain and his son-in-law's attitudes on
Jews, Palestine, Zionism. That will call for further research into
the interesting record of Twain and Gabrilowitsch.

larger htan the actual rate of in-
termarriage among Jews in the
country. Even if only half these
students follow through on their
intention, the intermarriage rate
would be twice the current rate
for Jews estimated by recent stud-
ies as about 4 per cent. This
suggests that highly educated
Jews are more receptive to inter-
marriage. In this connection, the
report shows that Jewish students

The three-page Arendt letter received a scant one-column reply
from Walter Laqueur in a follow-up issue of New York Review. In it
Laqueur, gentlemanly, reserved, self-controlled, assured Miss Arvndt
that no one in the "Jewish Establishment" was out to get her. The
implication in the reply is that the eminent woman writer suffered
from a persecution complex.
Laqueur points out that "Miss Arendt was attacked not so much
for what she said, but for how she said it." But unlike her he is not
one-sided, for he added: "Her attackers, on the other hand, were all
too often inclined to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Incensed
by offensive remarks or misconstructions in Miss Arendt's book, they
brushed aside the discussion of the real issue she had raised, and
thus became so highly charged that a rational discussion of this complex
of questions has been much. more difficult during the last few years.
In Miss Arendt's eyes, all this of course is the fault of her critics."
Because of the issues involved and the complex fear generated
by the Arendt attitude, Laqueur's concluding paragraph in his brief
letter deserved attention. Laqueur, assuring Miss Arendt that there is
no conspiracy against her, wrote:
There is no deliberate conspiracy, I believe, on the part of
the "Jewish establishment" to hide the truth. There has been
and is great reluctance to pass judgment on certain Jewish
leaders. They may have failed, they may have to be condemned;
and yet, who does not feel that there, but for the grace of God, go
I? The real sins of omission committed by what Miss Arendt
calls "the officers of interest groups" she does not mention; per-
haps she is not aware of them. Some of them tried to monopolize
the historiography of the catastrophe in their own hands; they did
valuable work in collecting source material but discouraged all
"outsiders" and all the more ambitious projects to write the history
of the period in one of the world's main languages; they failed to
enlist younger historians and make them partners in their work.
(Mr. Robinson's book was 'apparently meant to be the final word on
the subject — at least for the time being.) This was a mistaken
policy and it has resulted in a serious crisis; the whole future of
this official historiography is now in the balance. Common human
failings underlie this crisis: its causes are less dramatic and sinister
than Miss Arendt believes. I think I can assure her that the Elders
of Zion are not yet out to get her.
The debate over the resistance and the attitude of Jewish leader-
ship may go on for a long time. There will be much to criticize — and
much to comment upon. But one fact emerges irrefutable: the reality,
at the time of the holocaust, that "there but for the grace of God, go
I" faced every man and woman and many children. The debate that
has emerged is not a farce: it is part of a horrible tragedy.

*

Vested Interests and Cross-Purposes in Jewish
Dealings Over Vatican Ecumenical Discussions

In his sensational report, "How the Jews Changed Catholic
Thinking," in Look Magazine, the senior editor of Look, Joseph Roddy,
does not place the representatives of national Jewish organizations
in a good light. The aging problem of "vested interests" emerges
anew, and the conflicting approaches to major issues by spokesmen for
national Jewish groups leaves us—as they did so often in the past—
blushing.
While the internal Catholic controversy is of major interest,
indicating indisputably that there are bigots in the church circles, the
fact that Jews sent numerous emissaries to Rome to haggle over the
deicide declaration, the danger of an implication that Jews begged for
the forgiveness, instead of standing firm in defense of historic truth
that Jews did not and could not have played a role in the Roman prac-
tice of crucifixion, we are in the limelight of having bargained. And
instead of having attained a great goal, the textbooks still imply
Jewish guilt because the Gospels can not be edited or rewritten.
And Jews had conflicting delegations, a rabbi pleaded while a
layman begins to speak French with the Pope—as the Look article
reveals—and we are supposed to be happy over our leadership.

2—Friday, January 28, 1966

By Philip
Slomovitz

Then there is the local angle. Rabbi Mordecai Halpern claimed
in an address from which we quoted in our Jan. 14 issue that in the
340 local organizations (including congregations) there aren't ten
who can qualify as Jewish leaders.
The rabbi's formulas are not new. Any realistic student of Jewish
affairs, any judge of the status of Jewry, would insist that to qualify
for leadership one must have a Jewish background and must be articu-
late. How many in our midst have a good Jewish background?
We talk so much about Jewish education that there is hope that
leadership with proper qualifications will emerge in the course of time.
Meanwhile the Establishments are not immune from criticism, and
that's what's bothering us about the articles in Look and by Miss
Arendt.

Laqueur Exposes 'Persecution Complex'

*

Discussion of Resistance Turned Into
. Vested Interests
Personality Squabble .
in Ecumenical Studies . . . lnterdating Issue

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

and third generation Jews. The
report cautions that this finding
might either indicate a trend
toward the assimilation of Jews
or a pattern of rebellion against.
the position of the parental gerk.
eration. Unraveling the unaerly--- -
ing dynamics would require data
on fourth generation Jews.
Although only 15 per cent of
*
*
the Jewish seudents say that it is
The Last of the Twains . . . A Sad Recollection
quite likely that they will inter-
The death in a Los Angeles motel, on Jan. 16 of Nina Clemens marry, this figure is substantially

Proper Way to Honor Dora Ehrlich

There could be no better way of honoring Dora Ehrlich than by
means of respecting her great love for the activities of Hadassah in
Israel.
The lounge in her name in the Hadassah Medical Center in
Jerusalem is a gift to a great movement to which Mrs. Ehrlich has
devoted most of her life's activities.
Dedicated to every sacred cause, to all humanitarian appeals, she
has never deviated from her loyalty to the Zionist ideal, and her
Hadassah services evidenced the great love she has displayed for
more than 50 years to the cause of Zion redeemed.
By honoring her, our community honors itself. It recognizes the
great qualities of a woman of valor. May she have the strength to
witness the realization of whatever dreams are left in the Zionist and
Jewish aspirations.

*

Valuable Data on Interdating and Mixed Marriages

An American Jewish Congress Commission on Jewish Affairs,
which is engaged in studying basic Jewish issues as well as the
relationships between Jews and non-Jews, with emphasis on the
cultural aspects, has made public interesting figures relating to
interdating and mixed marriages.
The commission, functioning under the chairmanship of Paul
H. Vishny, assigned the task of studying the mixed dating and
marriage question to Prof. David Caplowitz and Harry Levy of the
Columbia University Bureau of Applied Social Research and their
report indicates that the intermarriage rate is increasing but that it
poses fewer problems than formerly; that of 389 students interviewed
at an Eastern university 25 per cent said they never dated any one
outside their faith and more than 40 per cent reported dating those
of another faith than their own.
The results of this study are so important that they merit serious
consideration. A summary of the study states:
The Catholic students are most likely to engage in inter-
religious dating and the Jewish students are least likely to do so.
Almost three-quarters of the Catholic students, three-fifths of the
Protestant students and a third of the Jewish students say that
they frequently date people of other religions.
The study found that these college students are much less
religious now than they had been in high school. They attend
religious services much less frequently now and many of them
report that they adhere to no religion now, even though they
had been raised as Protestants, Catholics or Jews.
Although a great majority of the students say that they
interdate at least occasionally, only a little more than a third
consider it likely that they will marry someone outside their own
religion. Again Catholic students were found to be most recep-
tive to the idea of intermarriage—two-thirds of them considering
it likely that they will marry someone outside their own religion—
whereas 46 per cent of the Protestants and only 15 per cent of
the Jewish students think it is likely that they will intermarry.
The survey showed that parents and friends have a strong in-
fluence on a student's dating behavior and marriage plans. In
all religious groups, students who believe that their parents and
friends will disapprove of their intermarriage. How well students
get along with their parents also seems to be a factor in their inter-
dating. Students who experienced their family relationship as
"cold" or "not understanding" interdate more often than students
who describe their relationship with their parents as warm and
understanding.
Generation was found to be a factor in the dating behavior of

whose fathers are academics or
other professionals are more
ready to consider intermarriage
than other Jewish students. The

researchers suggest that intermar-
riage among Jews may thus in-
crease since more and more young
Jews are attracted to the profes-
sions, particularly the academic
profession.
The existing condition may not
be entirely black, Jews are less
prone to intermarry and to inter-
date than others, yet the continu-
ing increase in the rate of inter-
marriage among out youth is
cause for concerfn.
This survey, and previous stud-
ies, indicate that the greatest dan-
ger lies in our universities, that
the threat of a rise in intermar-

riage is more in the professional
than in any other ranks. Knowing
this, perhaps a way can be found

to reach these elements with posi-
tive Jewish approaches.
The American Jewish Congress
Commission on Jewish Affairs has

rendered a service with this study
and its compiled facts.

Priests Instructed
on Implementation
of Vatican Schema

ROME (JTA)—Augustin • Cardi-
nal Bea, whom the late Pope John
XXIII entrusted with the task of
bringing to the Ecumenical Coun-
cil a schema for improving the re-
lations between the Ca t h o 1i c

Church and non-Christian reli-
gions, spelled out for the CatholiC,,T--•
priesthood a set of instruction1.
plus advice on how best to under-
stand the council's document re-
lating to the Jews, and how to
implement the document.
The schema, originally brought
by Cardinal Bea before Vatican
Council II in 1962, has since been
adopted in somewhat different
form and is now official Catholic
Church doctrine, promulgated as
such by Pope Paul VI. Cardinal
Bea gave his instructions and ad-
vice in a long article that appeared
today in The Ecclesiastical Re-
view.

He noted that the draft declara-
tion on Jews was the most debated
in the council's "not so much for
religious reasons but because of
unfortunate political circumstances
of the moment. In fact," Cardinal
Bea continued, "it was deleted
from the council's agenda by the
preparatory commission in June,
1962, because of unforeseen op-

position. Only new intervention by

Pope John succeeded in bringing
the subject back to the agenda in
December, 1962, when he endorsed
an opinion sent to him by Cardi-
nal Bea with the words: 'We read
with attention Cardinal Bea's note,
and share his opinion perfectly as
to the importance and responsibil-
ity of our interest in it.' "