Purely Commentary
Sander Levin ... Arthur Goldberg ... Howard Metzenbaum
By the time we are to cast our ballots on Nov. 3, the voters' minds
will have been made up on their preferences. The important thing
to be emphasized at this time is that the right to vote should not be
sacrificed, that none should fail in our duties as electors.
DON'T BE A POLITICAL DROPOUT
Interesting contests marked this year's political campaign. The
Jewish communities have had special interests in the fact that some
very important' candidates stem from our ranks.
Sander Levin in Michigan and Arthur Goldberg in New York are
candidates for the governorships of the two respective states. Howard
Metzenbaum, member of a popular family in Ohio, is a senatorial
candidate.
Richard Ottinger's candidacy for the senatorship from New York
and Arthur Goldberg's campaign for governor of New York are creating
most exciting interest not only in their state but nationally.
The New York campaign has been hot. When the two candidates,
former Supreme Court Justice Goldberg and Governor Nelson Rocke-
feller, confronted one another, they engaged in hot debates. Jewish
issues often predominated. Israel's needs were often discussed. The
school issues divided many communities. Note an interesting pose
showing the two New York contestants:
......
"WHO YOU CALLIN' A—" might be the exchange here as Gov.
Nelson Rockefeller and Democratic opponent, Arthur Goldberg,
meet at a microphone in Manhattan.
In our own community the candidacy of Sander Levin is of great
interest. The retiring state senator injected hot issues into the debates
with Governor Milliken.
Sander Levin's family relationships are interesting. His uncle Theo-
dore is a distinguished federal judge. His cousin, Charles, a son of
Theodore, is Michigan Court of Appeals - -
judge. His brother, Carl, is a member of the
Detroit Common Council.
Those who remember his father, the late
Saul R. Levin, will recall that he was not
only consul for Honduras in Detroit but
that he had distinguished himself as a penol-
ogist. He was interested in the conditions that
existed in our jails, and he advocated many
reforms, some of which had been adopted
subsequently.
Indeed, we have an interesting group of
men running for office. Not to be ignored is
the Metzenbaum campaign in Ohio. The
Democratic candidate who opposes the Re-
Sander Levin
2—Friday, 9ctober 30, 1970
.THE.' 147110 IT JEWISH NEWS
By Philip
A Great Classic . . . Maxwell Geismar's
Slomovitz
Notable Work on Mark Twain ... Current
P,olitical Campaign and the Candidates
this was his single remaining
publican Robert A. Taft Jr. has spoken out often against anti-Semitism life,
area of ignorance and prejudice
and in support of Israel, he refused to affiliate with a club that discrimi- about
the 'inferior'—or in this case
nated against Jews and Negroes. And his opponent stems from a family precisely because he felt the Jews
(his grandfather was President Howard Taft and his father was U.S. were superior—races. He was prob-
Senator Robert A Taft) who have always been among the staunchest
ably wrong in not attributing anti-
supporters of Zionism and Israel.
Semitism to Christian prejudice.
It's well to know the candidates before we go to the polls, and Since then it has been demon-
the Jewish contestants represent an interesting group of men.
strated all too clearly that Hitler-
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ism was the end product of over
Mark Twain as a Social Prophet . . . Attitude on Jews . . . a thousand years of anti-Semitism
in Christian religious thought and
Maxwell Geismar's Affectionate Analyses
Famed for his "anecdotage," historically recorded as America's teaching. What was at stake in the
Nazi
holocaust was not merely
greatest humorist and one of our most distinguished literary giants,
Mark Twain's major characteristic, "as a social and moral voice of the lives of the Jews but the fate
of
Christianity
itself, in its extreme
justice and humanity whose humor moment, and also
destiny of a
made the lesson more effective" is gen- so-called Christian the
Europe.
erally either unknown or overlooked. The
"But
Clemens
was
accurate
and
eminent literary critic and biographer,
Maxwell Geismar, corrects it. In his persuasive when he attributed the
fear
and
hatred
of
Jews
to
econom-
"Mark Twain: An American Prophet,"
the great humorist emerges in his true ic causes where, just as in modern
light. He is revivified. reintroduced as colonialism, financial gain could
be linked with moral hypocrisy;
the eminent figure in American letters, though
he was perhaps overgener-
as the great writer who had enriched ous in attributing
to all Jews the
our literature and whose works are virtues that only some
possessed.
imperishable.
He did not really understand the
In his analysis of the life and writings meaning of the whole heritage of
Mark Twain of Samuel Clemens—Mark Twain—in this Jewish culture in the historical _
Houghton Miflin book, Geismar has written a classic about a classicist epoch of Judeo-Christian civiliza-
that will add immeasurably to our literature in addition to serving to tion—but he was also open to sug-
regain popularity for the man who not only was the creator of many gestion and quick to correct his
anecdotes and of some of the best stories in American literature but own ignorance. Perhaps, all in all,
who is introduced to us by Geismar as a social prophet.
this particular essay should be re-
Twain's attitude on religion, his criticism of Christianity, his garded as a typical example of
attune on Jews—he had been considered. mildly anti-Semitic and American thinking about the Jews,
that's discounted in Geismar's classic—and the general attitude on
in an area where Clemens had ad-
Jews adds considerable light on an interesting and often discussed
mittedly not done much thinking
subject.
for himself; and one should com-
Geismar's account of so important a literary subject is so richly pare Twain's relatively 'advanced'
implemented with notable quotations, with important references to views about the Jews with the em-
the Twain "Autobiography," with so many details about the man who bedded anti-Semitism of Henry
is generally considered only as a humorist but who in fact was, as James and Edith Wharton in the
Geismar views him, a prophet, an angry prophet who was striving for same period, and of Willa Cather
social decencies, that the new resume of an interesting life is certain and Ernest Hemingway—even of
to be among the most valuable additions to the extensive Twain library. Theodore Dreiser and Thomas
The family life of Mark Twain is interestingly accounted for. Wolfe—in a later and supposedly
There were tragedies. One of his daughters, Mrs. Ossip (Clara) emancipated period.
"In any study of the vein of anti-
Gabrilowitsch, had her life's tragedies. There are no heirs left of
Twain's, and one judges from the inspiration to be gathered from Semitism that has run through the
American
novel ever since the tides
Maxwell Geismar that the American reader is his heir.
Dealing with the Mark Twain "Autobiography," commenting of European immigration began in
the 1880s and 1890s—a study which
that "at the climax of his sell-analysis, Mark Train described him-
would be of particular interest, and
self in the classical terms, not so much of Freudian individualism,
one which hasn't, to my knowledge,
as of the racial consciousness of Jung," Geismar states: "Mark Twain
yet
been done—Mark Twain would
himself emerges not as a split, divided, tormented figure. But rather,
off not too badly. Our only
if he still acknowledged and bowed down to all this in a yet come
regret
should be that this master
rebellious mood of comedy, as a daylight writer of the highest sort artist does
not come off better; and
who gives us, so many years later, a chronicle full of sweetness,
the protruding edges of Twain's
affection, tenderness and humor about the tragic experiences of opinions
about
the Jews show, per-
life."
haps, how deeply this strand of
Here as throughout his book we have evidence of Geismar's prejudice is woven into our whole
affection for Samuel Clemens-Mark Twain. Twain was the advocate of cultural fabric.
friendship among peoples. He used the word "nigger" in his lectures,
"In some versions of 'Concerning
not his writings, and he soon stopped that Geismar speaks of Twain
having spoken of Negroes "with his customary affection and insight" the Jews,' even Twain's famous
quip, 'A Jew is also a human being;
There is considerable space in Geismar's study about the Twain worse I could say of no man,' is
discussions With Nikolai Vasilevich Tchaykoffsky (the revolutionary, watered down for fear of further
not the composer), in relation to Twain's criticisms of Russia, and it controversy."
is valuable 'tor a knowledge of Twain as viewed by Geismar to quote
There is this interesting footnote
him, thus:
by Geismar:
"When Tchaykoffsky pointed out that the United States bad
"In the post-World War II
sent millions of dollars to help the suffering Russians, and didn't
Period of American literature,
that modify Mark Twain's opinion, Twain said it did not. `That
particularly during the 1950s, in
money came not from Americans, it came from Jews; much of it
some sort of acknowledgment of
from rich Jews, but the most of it from Russian and Polish Jews
and atonement fcr this fact, there
on the East Side—that is to say, it came from the very poor. The
was almost a school of `Jewish
Jew has always been benevolent. Suffering can always move a Jew's
writing' in the United States, in-
heart and tax his pocket to the limit. He will be at your mass
cluding such popular authors as
meetings. But if you find any Americans there, put them in a glass
Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud,
case and exhibit them. It will be worth fifty cents a bead to go
and Philip Reth. But the Jewish
and look at that show and try to believe in it."
hero of this writing is generally
Comments Geismar:
an assimilated white American
"Now can you really say that Mark Twain was anti-Semitic,
Jew, who moves uneasily be-
anti-alien, anti-poor people, and in particular against the new urban
tween his lost spiritual heritage
masses (as Henry James was, and so many other American writers
and the successful conformist,
of the period) when he attributed to these new Americans all the
and material values of American
traditional old-fashioned American values which he cherished and . society. One looks in vain for any
mourned. But in truth he was correct in realizing, that the great
novels like Henry Roth's 'Call It
American tradition had descended underground, as it were, to the
Sleep,' written during the 1930s.
minority groups who nourished and kept it alive during those turbu-
In the whole series of these so-
lent years, until a few decades later it would be the young, the
called Jewish novels, one looks
students, and the black Americans who carried on the same struggle,
in vain, indeed, for the traditional
under perhaps less hopeful circumstances, and a different historical
values of social criticism and so-
period, but with great vitality and spirit."
cial justice that are the central
Geismar refers to anti-Semitic trends among American writers.
ccntent, not only of the Judeo-
As in the instance of Henry James, whose anti-Semitism Geismar has Christian heritage, but of Amer-
condemned in his book about him, Geismar goes into details about ican literature itself."
other writers who were prejudiced against Jews. In the references to
The "lingering anti-Semitism" in
Twain in relation to the biased writers it is noteworthy that Geismar Twain is, as indicated, disputed by
went into this deep discussion of the subject:
Geismar, who quotes Twain often
"In his volume of literary essays there was Mark Twain's descrip- to the contrary.
tion of 'Stirring Times in Austria' in 1897, which in turn led him into
Geismar's is a great literary
'Concert- ling the Jews.' Now this essay has had a long history of work and this reviewer views it as
controversy—as to Twain's anti-Semitism—in sectarian circles and an added classic that will enrich
also in those groups of liberal purists who would outlaw 'Huck Finn' the growing Clemens-Twain library.
from the libraries because its hero is called Nigger Jim. Unlike
Maxwell Geismar, listed in Who's
Shakespeare's Shylock, Jim is a hero, if in what may now seem at Who in International Jewry, pub-
times to be a paternalistic view of the heroic slave. (How much of lished in Jerusalem, has just been
this was a put-on by Clemens for the sake of his story, we have elevated from Who's Who in Amer-
already discussed.) But in the controversial essay Clemens mani- ica to Who's Who in the World. His
fested some of the typical prejudices which have existed in American fame rises with "Mark Twain: An
literature
and culture about 'The Jew.' Perhaps at this period of his American Prophet."
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