Purely Commentary
James Naumburg Rosenberg: Distinguished
Artist, Great Lawyer, Civil Rights Champion
James Naumburg Rosenberg's life story makes fascinating reading.
It is told in some detail — but limited to the years only through the
mid-1950s — in his impressive "Painter's Self-Portrait." He passed
away on July 21 at the age of 95. Even in his last 12 years he had
performed great services. He undertook the task of pleading for adop-
tion of the Genocide Convention by the United States Senate. He
participated in peace movements and authored important briefs out-
lining means of pursuing peace. During the last decade of his life
he authored many essays and wrote at least two books as addenda to
his earlier works.
This Commentator's review of his "Painter's Self-Portrait" con-
tained references to several important episodes in his life — some of
' which will be preserved as important commentaries on the experiences
of world Jewry during the Nazi era. (That review was reproduced in
full in the Congressional Record by Congressman John D. Dingell
because of the comments on historic incidents of value in American
history).
Excerpts from the article that referred to Mr. Rosenberg's experi-
ences must be quoted and we present them here, as follows:
Mr. Rosenberg might have become a Detroiter. He relates, after
accounting for his early law practice and his association with the
late Abram Elkus (who later was U.S. Ambassador to Turkey):
"In 1912. when 1 was 38. there came to me the U.S. Motor Re-
ceivership. This was my biggest case up to that time: it was presided
over by Judge Hough. When its reorganization in 1913 created the
Maxwell Motor Company—now Chrysler—George W. Davison. chair-
man of the reorganization committee. invited me to abandon the law,
more to Detroit (at a large salary and a stock of bonus), and become
the company's head. This was another of those crucial moments
which make or mar a man. What, I wonder, would have happened
had I accepted that tempting proposal to become an industrial leader?
Success or failure? Leader? Or slave? I declined the offer. Somehow,
I had the sense to realize that to accept viould have meant farewell
to the kind of life I wanted to lead."
The question often is asked in our community: why weren't there
Jews in the pioneering automobile industry in Detroit? There was one
such pioneer: the late Bernard Ginsburg (father of Mrs. Golda Krolik),
whose truck manufacturing venture was short-lived. Had Mr. Rosen-
berg come here, a different story might have been recorded.
In his self-portrait, however, he does relate his numerous suc-
cesses in law, the friendship that was established with Judge Hough
after he had won a case, as a young practitioner, against the veteran,
eminent lawyer, Max D. Steuer.
But he had a special love — for art — for which he finally for-
sook his lucrative law practice 12 years ago — and his motivation,
in refusing the tempting Maxwell offer, is understandable.
He went to Rome in 1926, in the course of his travels for the
Agrojoint and the JDC. He relates this incident:
"While we were in Rome an old foreign woman attempted to
assassinate Mussolini. 'Jews,' cried the Fascist, and mobbed old
bearded Hebrews. This led to my writing a poem on the very large
menu of the Ulpia Restaurant—once a basilica—where Bessie (Mrs.
Rosenberg) and I had a copious luncheon. Twenty years later I found
that poem among some papers in my studio. In 1947 it was published
in the Menorah journal, whose editor. Henry Hurwitz, has consented
to its publication in this book. That poem being as revealing a part
of me as anything in my entire life, I include it as a sort of epilogue.
It is an overture to the somber paintings of mu late years."
Indeed, his Roman Holiday Conversation Piece is most revealing.
It is a book in itself. It is a great commentary on a sensitive Jew's
reactions to injustice, to the incident in which —
Yesterday
An Irish woman, the papers say,
Caine all the way
To Rome
To murder Mussolini.
The aged lady sought his life
With an appropriate butcher's knife.
At once a Fascist mob cries out.
"Behold! It is a Jew who seeks
To slay our noble master"
Faster than speed of light
Ten thousand blackshirts
Armed for fight:
March on the Jewish ghetto.
They are going to sack it
And hack it to bits.
Someone is quick
And in the lucky nick
Of time the truth is out.
With curses, the mob disperses.
There remain only jeers and hoots:
And iron boots.
Only a few dozen patriarchs' beards
Are plucked out by the roots.
That always seems to be the story
Ancient and hoary.
Always we are strangers at the gate.
We come too soon: we come too late.
We are unwanted. Wherefore? Look!
Is it because we always
Carry an unwelcome Book?
Must we be smitten
For what we have written?
Is it libel
To speak so of the Bible?
Lack of Response to Most Israelis' Craving for
Peace . . . Obstacles to American Plan . . . Tribute
to James N. Rosenberg, American Jewish Leader
Our Duties as Americans and as Jews in the Current Middle East Crisis
All the prejudices to the contrary notwithstanding, even the extremest opponents of Israel must admit
that no other nation in the Middle East so consistently pleaded for peace. Yet, the new peace move initiated
by Secretary of State William P. Rogers compels Israel and her friends to strive for protective guarantees
that dangers to Israel will be averted in whatever plans may be formulated to end the present conflict.
In the process, there is inevitable suspicion that the enemies of Israel may continue to resort to
every available trick to destroy the Jewish State.
Gamal Abdel Nasser's insincerity was in evidence at the very meeting of 1,700 members of the
Arab Socialist Union at which he gave his "Yes" answer to Rogers. In that audience, according to the
AP report, "were six Arab commandos who hijacked an Olympic Airways jet in Athens on Wednesday
(July 22). Nasser hailed their 'patriotic spirit.' "
Some very few hours later Nasser admitted that the reason he gave the unqualified approval to the
Rogers proposal was that he wanted it to serve as a deterrent to further aid to Israel from the United
States. And at the same time the guerrillas announced that they would not—under any circumstances—
make peace with Israel, that the moment there was a withdrawal from any territory they would occupy
it and that their only aim was the erasing of Israel from the map.
Thus, King Hussein is in trouble, with threats hovering over him from the guerrilla commandos.
Syria and Iraq, as expected, definitely reject the peace plan and whatever Israel does will spell
uncertainty, impending dangers, the need for constant vigilance against threats of annihilation.
With all the confidence we have in Israel's anxiety for peace and the determination to bend in many
directions to attain it, it does not take much wisdom to acknowledge the brewing dangers. For a long
time to come Israel's friends must stand by her and give assurance of concern and readiness to
provide aid in time of net,d.
While the dangers are entirely to Israel and the Israelis, the chief challenge in the present crisis
is to JO'S :I !ieinner::11 0 . cluntries and especi.ily the United States. There will be many conflicting
attitudes, attempts to berate Israel, efforts to give comfort to Israel's enemies. Her friends must stand
by her and never abandon the defensive forts. Our ramparts are both in the philanthropic areas and
on the political arenas. We must provide the funds for Israel's economic security and we must raise
our voices every time an enemy of the embattled state emerges to attack Israel. The lives of nearly
three million Israeli citizens are at stake and the sovereignty of the homeland of that many Jews and
their Christian and Moslem fellow-citizens, more than half of them being survivors of Nazism. If we
ever fail to subscribe to the slogan of never again another Auschwitz or Bergen-Belsen or Dachau or
Buchenwald, we will be undeserving of our heritage as Jews and our sacred rights as American citizens.
•
The Movement for Peace . . . lsraels' Clamor for Amity, Readiness to Make Concessions
In Israel today there is a rushing tide of dove-ism. There is every indication that perhaps even
a majority would be willing to give up conquered territories. David Ben-Gurion is among them. There
are many academicians who are leading movements to encourage peace negotiations at any price other
than that which would endanger Israel's security. As long as there would be guarantees that Israel
would be protected, the sentiments are against colonizing areas in and near Hebron and in opposition
to retention of any-of the acquired areas. There is insistence that the Golan Heights not be abandoned
and that Jerusalem should not again be divided. In the instance of Jerusalem there is hope that, if
necessary, an international commission be formed to supervise the half places of all faiths, thereby
guaranteeing a sort of international regime under Israel's administration.
These are the trends towards peace-seeking by Israelis. The trouble, in its major tragic aspects,
is that no Arab is willing to talk to an Israeli, that even the Arab moderates seem to condone the
terrorist acts, that opportunities for dialogues arc so remote !
That's where the difficulties enter, and therein lies the agony of the Middle East. That's why
peace, even with an Israeli acceptance of the U.S. peace plan, is so remote !
•
•
A Newspaperman's Wife Earns the Rostrum
Max. There I met some 20 topnu
t German Sews, who were eager
to know about the Crimean work.
Albert Einstein was one of the
guests.
"When the time came for me to
speak, I dealt but briefly with
the Crimea and turned to another
topic. This, be it remembered,
was 1'26. Taking a magazine
called Bren Essel (Nettle) from
my pocket, I told how by chance
I had picked up that savage anti-
Semitic journal at the Berlin
railway station. Pointing to hid-
eously offensive caricatures of
some of the very men who sat
at that dinner table and to incit-
ing libels against them, I asked
what was being done to stop
Hitler. They listened tolerantly
to this ignorant American and
assured him that Hitler was just
another one of those harmless
demagogues who from time to
time rose briefly to the surface
and soon vanished. Germany,
they told me, suffered no such
anti-Semitism as did we of the
U.S.A. They were members of
some of Germany's most exclu-
sive clubs. Einstein's warnings
were heeded no more than were
mine. Who can blame them?"
Mr. Rosenberg's Roman Holiday
verse later was reproduced by him
as a special book which served as
a reminder of a period that held
out many dangers and whose les-
sons served to keep libertarians on
the alert against the repetition of
Hitlerism.
A genius in many fields of en-
The large 14 pages devoted to the complete "Roman Holiday" deavor, his labors as a painter,
poem are, in a way, an historic analysis of the Jew as the world's after he had retired from his law
scapegoat. A great spirit is imbedded in it.
practice, won for him recognition
in art centers throughout the
•
•
world. His paintings are on display
There is much — very much — more that can be said about Mr. worldwide. They were on display
Rosenberg, and a great deal that is worth quoting from it. One addi- in the Detroit Art Institute and
tional incident must not be overlooked. He went to Berlin, in the one of his paintings was a gift to
course of his Agrojoint mission, and he tells this story:
the Detroit Jewish Community
"A dinner party was given for me at the splendid Wahnsee
Center.
home of Lola Hahn, glamorous daughter of Felix Warburg's brother
Only six weeks before his death
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS he made a generous gift to the
2—Friday, July 31, 1970
•
By Philip
Slomovitz
When a working newspaperman suddenly loses his role of seclusion
and begins to receive a bit of notoriety, his wife could well-emerge as
the source of tests of communicativeness. No other field of human en-
deavor calls for as much submersion into a background than the edi-
tor's. In the communications media the television artists are always in
the forefront, while news writers and radio broadcasters must let their
works speak and act for them.
So, to get the secrets out of their lives, the women assume more
effective roles than wives of all other professionals. Even more than a
doctor's wife, a newsman's spouse gets in on lots of secrets and frequent
fascinations rooted in excitement.
Anne Campbell told it well in a poem about the newsmen's wives.
She covered a lot of ground in this poem:
A NEWSPAPERMAN'S WIFE
To the startling change when
By Anne Campbell
you cut your hair;
If you never know how to time
If he looks at you with a far-off
the roast;
stare,
If the guests drift in long before
You're the wife of a newspaper
the host,
man!
If he loves the kids, but the
paper most,
If the people you meet are in-
You're the wife of a newspaper
teresting,
man!
If you never know whom he's
going to bring;
If the air is blue with the words
If the talk at your board has a
he uses,
world-wide ring,
If you want him for bridge, and
You're the wife of a newspaper
he refuses;
man!
If he sits in a game and always
loses,
If your dreams are heavier than
You're the wife of a newspaper
your purse,
man!
If you're mother and comrade,
wife and nurse,
If he's always lending his weekly
If you look at another and think
he's worse,
Pay,
And giving the pass you want
You're the wife of a newspaper
away,
man!
If he plans to work when you
want to play,
If you're loyal, kind-hearted,
You're the wife of a newspaper
good-humored, too;
man!
If you love the guy, and I know
you do!
If he seems to be blind to what
There's nobody quite as glad
you wear,
as you—
The wife of a newspaper man!
We have an especially high regard for Anne Campbell. Her hus-
band George was this commentator's first boss as city editor of the
Detroit News. We worked together in numerous fields of endeavor, for
a few years before his death in the Detroit Historical Society. The
editor's wife will be especially intrigued by her just-quoted poem. As a
Jewish working newspaperman's wife, she can surely add a few more
details to the intrigues of the communications challenges.
a
Jewish National Fund Forest that
is being planted in honor of the
commentator and his wife and
while he had planned to attend the
JNF dinner on /die 17 he was
compelled to cancel his plans on
doctor's orders.
He was one of the great men of
this century and many of his labors
will surely continue to bear fruit