12 Friday, December 15, 1918

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

New Art Classic: A Collection of the Beautiful Works
of Famour Caricaturist, Water Colorist David Levine

David Levine is one of the
very great caricaturists of
all time. He is also an out-
standing water colorist. The
volume containing his col-
lected works, "The Arts of
David Levine" (Knopf) pro-
ves it.
This is a volume of great
magnitude. Included are
155 caricatures, 61 city-
scapes, landscapes and por-
traits in full color.
The ingathering of these
works by Levine, for the
first time, into a single vol-
ume, is an important event
for art lovers.
Levine's art works have
appeared in the New York
Times, Esquire, New York
Review of Books and on the
covers of Time and News-
week.
Included in the notables
caricatured and included in
"The Arts of David Levine"
are Menahem Begin, Moshe
Dayan, Albert Einstein,
Sigmund Freud, Lillian
Hellman, Henry Kissinger,
Norman Mailer, Golda
Meir, Arthur Rubenstein,
Arnold Schenberg, Ger-
trude Stein and many of the
world famous.
Emile Zola of the "J'Ac-
cuse" fame in the Affaire

DAVID LEVINE
Dreyfus, President Carter,
Eleanor Roosevelt and
scores of others are in the
collected caricatures in this
volume.
In the list of impressive
paintings, the reader and
admirer of this collection
will be impressed by
"Oisgeshprete," "Conversa-
tion," "Shmate Ladled,"
"Coney Shwesters," and
others.
Buchner,
Thomas
president of Steuben Glass
and former director of the
Brooklyn Museum, wrote
the foreword to this volume,
stating in part:
"He once drew Adolf Hil-
ter with no trace of exagg-

eration. His explanation
was that you can't make a
monster out of a monster:
the reality is the symbol.
His seriousness is evident in
the fact that he will not
draw other people's points of
view. When his work ap-
pears on the cover of Time or
Newsweek, the comment the
caricatures make is his own.
"Indisputably and discon-
certingly, David Levine is
his own man. Who else
would attack the bastions of
capitalist materialism in
the style of the illustrator of
Alice in Wonderland? Who
else would say of the con-
temporary international
aesthetic sweeping-up from
the Impressionists through

all the history-making ex-
citement of recent years: 'In
what has been abandoned
there is great pickings.'
"He is also very funny and
being funny is important to
him (and probably always
has been). He reacts to
tragedy with unintentional
smiles and covers shyness
with quipping bravado. He
happily argues either side of
any question and is so out-
rageously provacative that
the most serious adversary
is soon helpless with laugh-

ter.
"A master of mimicry —
especially of himself as the
eternal innocent — he loves
an audience and always de-
serves one. Consistently
paradoxical, he is also very
serious. He finds nothing
funny in prejudice and is
himself extremely tolerant,
except for those in
authority. Mistrusting all
establishments, especially
governments. he can be de-
pended upon to support
whoever opposes them.
"He has the courage of his
convictions and refuses
even to make personally
beneficial investments for
fear that his money might
be used to support activity
which he opposes. His spirit
of independence comes
through a remark he once
made on being Jewish: 'To
the degree that there is
anti-Semitism in the world,
I acknowledge being
Jewish; in the same sense,
when cartooning
is
ridiculed, I confess to being
a cartoonist."
"There was a time — and
it lasted into the 1960s —
when painting
and

caricaturing were two dis-
tinctly different arts as

practiced by Levine. Paint- that epitomize, that drive to
ing was almost an homage the essence of the artist's
to the old masters — interest in the subject be-
Rembrandt-like family pm- fore him, and in caricatures
traits, Eakins-like inter- that ennoble, that suggest
iors, chiaroscuro the draughtsmanship of In-
panoramas of Coney Island gres rather than of Nast as
and English-style the ultimate goal."
"The Art of David Levine"
watercolors of English-style
is a genuine treasure. It will
landscapes.
"Caricaturing was full of not only be loved by art col-
cartooning, of making fun, lectors but will make art
of making a living. The in- collectors even of amateurs
teraction of these two arts — so impressive are its

has resulted in paintings contents. —P.S.
* * *

From David Levine's art collection: Eisenhower,
Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.

British Jewry's Orthodox United Synagogue Losing Battle
Against Assimilation, Decline in the Number of Its Rabbis

By MAURICE

SAMUELSON
LONDON (JTA) — The
old joke that "being a rabbi
is no job for a Jewish boy"
has become a not-so-funny
reality for many congrega'
tions of the United
Synagogue, Anglo Jewry's
biggest grouping of
synagogues.
Four of its major pulpits
in London alone are without
a minister or soon will be.
They include Hampstead
Garden suburb and Saint
John's Wood, the capital's
wealthiest communities.
Cries of help are also heard
from important provincial
centers like Glasgow, Hull
and Sheffield.
United
Meanwhile,
Synagogue membership is
declining as assimilation,
Reform and Progressive
movements take their toll.
It is not helped either by a
resurgence of militant Or-
thodoxy among some
Jewish youngsters. For al-
though yeshivot are crow-
ded, their students tend to
shun the mainstream of Or-
t')odoxy represented by the
Ur jted Synagogue.

Al one despairing
minister sees it, the
yeshiva students are like

rabbis who prefer to
wear a fur coat than to
light a fire which will also
warm others.

Although the shortage of
rabbis has developed over
many years, its full gravity
was brought home by last
month's shock announce-
ment that the rabbi of Saint
John's Wood Synagogue
was leaving after less than
two years. Rabbi Menahem
Fink came from Holland
where he was principal
minister at The Hague. He
is now going to Israel, where
his father is head of the
Haifa Beth Din (rabbinical
court).
at
vacancy
The
Hampstead Garden suburb
follows the departure of its
rabbi, Irish-born Isaac
Bernstein, for the United
States.
Blame for the crisis is fre-
quently directed at Jews
College, the rabbinical sem-
inary founded in 1855 to
train English-speaking
ministers and laymen.
From 1971 to 1976 it did not
produce a single rabbinical
graduate.

Of last year's 11
graduates, only two
entered the Anglo-
Jewish ministry and a

third became a cantor.
Others became lecturers
and one an accountant.
The college hopes to pro-
duce four more ministers
in the next couple of
years.

It hotly denies, however,
that these sad figures are
caused by any lack of
facilities, and attributes
them to the lack of incen-
tives for potential rabbis,
which in turn reflects the
community's own priorities.
The laymen who run the
United Synagogue are
blamed for not making the
ministry more attractive in
terms of prestige and salary
and for giving congrega-
tions too little say over hir-
ing rabbis.
The issue came close to
flashpoint recently over the
appointment of a rabbi at
the important Golders
Green Synagogue in
North-West London, whose
previous full-time incum-
bent died nearly two years
ago.

The synagogue issued a
"call" to 30-year-old
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, a
gifted Cambridge-
trained philosopher who
was a lecturer at Jews
College. Sacks accepted

The synagogue's honor- known: they include better
ary officers then threatened and more flexible salary
to resign en bloc and suc- scales and less interference"
cessfully appealed to the by the United Synagogue in
Chief Rabbi, Dr. Immanuel its constituent congrega-
college principal also Jakobovits, who is also hon- tions. But they are long-
orary
principal of Jews Col- term measures and will not
agreed to this.
results
im-
lege. Sacks' appointment produce
However, S.S. Levin, the was confirmed and has pro- mediately.
The only other step is for
Synagogue ved so successful that a con-
United
president, took the view gregation which seemed the United Synagogue to
that Sacks should not fill doomed is showing marked raise the statutory retire-
both positions, and Sacks signs of revival and is the ment age of ministers, and
to ask some who are already
indicated that he would envy of others.
But this is an exceptional pensioned off to fill the
forego the Golders Green job
rather than lose his lecture- case. Remedies for the shor- empty pulpits until new
tage of rabbis are well men arrive.
ship.

the "call" and the
synagogue agreed to his
request that he should be
allowed to retain his
Jews College post. The

New Toland Volume of Photos
Describes Adolf Hitler's Life

John Toland adds im- designations is a series of Documentary of His Life," is
a companion to the earlier
measurably to the extent of photos appearing under
his collective works on Hit- the title "Horrors of the work, and also stands on its
own
as a riveting photo-
ler and the Nazi era with Final Solution Re-
documentary of Hitler's
"Hitler: the Pictorial vealed." In this grouping
Documentary of His Life" appear the following: personal and public life.
German Civilians Are The over-sized volume
(Doubleday).
contains rare and prey-
As the author of a biog- Forced to See the Pris-
iously unpublished photos,
raphy of Hitler and "The oner Dead at Buchen-
including shots from the
wald,
German
Girl
Last 100 Days" he has al-
personal
picture albums of
Forced
to
Watch
Exhu-
ready provided the basic
Hitler's mistress, Eva
material dealing with the mation of Bodies at Nam-
Braun,
the
private c_ollec-
ering,
Slave
Laborers
at
Nazi Fuehrer and the period
tions of Goering and
of destruction of the Jewish Buchenwald, Hungarian
communities and of the mil- Skeleton, Crematoriums Joachim von Ribbentrop
lions of peoples from other in German Concentra- and the files of the U.S. Sig-
nal Corps.
tion Camp at Weimar,
lands.
Arranged chronologi-
In the pictorial documen- J'Accuse!: A Freed Slave
tary Toland has gathered Laborer Points Out a cally, each chapter con-
465 photographs depicting Nazi Guard Who Brutally tains an introduction,
running text and ex-
the various stages in Hit- Beat Prisoners.
tended photo captions by
ler's life, the formation of Toland is a Pulitzer
the Nazi party, his rise to Prize-winning historian
Toland.
power, the many war activi- whose biography, "Adolph
Toland was awarded the
ties, the dictator's personal Hitler" became an interne-
Pulitzer Prize for his prev-
life, his loves and his hat- tional bestseller.
ious title, "The Rising Sun:
reds.
Toland's new volume,
The Decline and Fall of the

Included in the various "Hitler: The Pictorial

Japanese Empire."