THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

68 Friday, November 21, 1980

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Walter Lippmann's Criticism of His Brethren

The 100th anniversary of
the birth of Walter
Lippmann, which oc-
casioned many journalistic
reminiscences and the pub-
lication of books and arti-
cles about the prominent
columnist, also inspired re-
search into the Jewish
interests of the columnist
who was born a Jew.
Rabbi Arthur Chiel of
Cong. Bnai Jacob in Wood-
bridge, Conn., was espe-
cially interested and the
available data is ascribable
to him.
He found what is purpor-
tedly the only Jewish asser-

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That is the real problem
termination of his conduct
of the Jew in. America, the
in life!
Because the Jew is problem of his use of his op-
conspicuous, he is under portunities. And as a Jew
all the greater obligation writing in a Jewish weekly
not to practice the vices to Jews I say that there is
of our civilization. He very serious danger of fail-
needs more than anyone ure.
That the Jew is not the
else to learn the classic
Greek virtue of modera- only one who has not made
tion; for he cannot, even if the best of his opportunities
he wishes to, get away is, of course, obvious. That
unscathed with what less he cannot wholly help him-
distinguishable men can. self is perhaps true. But in
the long reckoning no ex-
For that reason the rich cuses will be of any avail,
and vulgar and pretentious nor any comparisons. The
Jews of our big American Jew is conspicuous, and un-
cities are perhaps the less in his own conduct of
greatest misfortune that life he manages to demon-
has ever befallen the Jewish strate the art of moderate,
WALTER LIPPMANN
people. They are the real clean and generous living,
fellow than we do in our- fountain of anti-Semitism. every failure will magnify
selves. Thus, while the Jews They are everywhere in itself in woe upon the heads
are not sharper traders than sight, and though their of the helpless and the un-
the Greeks or the Scotch, vices may be no greater
and while there are not than those of other jazzy fortunate.
The Jew will have to dis-
among Jews more blatantly elements in the population, play far better taste than
vulgar rich than among they are a thousand times the average if he is to dis-
other stocks, sharp trading
more conspicuous.
count for the purpose of
and blatant vulgarity are
Moreover, they dissipate
sympathetic understanding
more conspicuous in the awkwardly. It happens that with the rest of the Ameri ,
Jew because he himself is
the Jews, for good or evil, can people the fundamental
have not court -or country- fact that he is conspicuous.
more conspicuous.
house tradition of high liv-
HENRY FORD
ing, and little of the physi-
THE NEED FOR
AND THE JEWS
cal grace that just barely
SELF-CRITICISM
I am confirmed in this makes that mode of life
What the American Jew
impression by the case of tolerable. When they rush
about in super-automobiles, needs to develop is the habit
Henry Ford. Mr. Ford is at
bejeweled and furred and of self-criticism. If the
bottom a rather kindly man.
Here is the text of the On the record he is one of painted and over-barbered, spokesmen of the Jewish
article of April 14, 1922, the very last persons in the when they build themselves people would devote one-
reprinted from the world from whom one would French chateaus and Ita- half the energy they now
American Hebrew:
have anticipated such cruel lian palazzi, they stir up the expend in answering at-
*
absurdity as that which was latent hatred against crude tacks to attacking the evils
Requested to write on the perpetrated in the Dearborn wealth in the hands of shal- that stare everyone in the
question of a better under- Independent. What was Mr.
low people; and that hatred face, they would make a real
contribution to the unity of
standing between Jew and Ford's idea?
diffuses itself.
American life. But judged
non-Jew in America from
They
undermine
the
According to an
by their public utterances,
the point of view of a stu-
natural
liberalism
of
the
dent of public opinion, I aril authority whom I regard American people, and cause they seem to me supersensi-
not unmindful of the adage, as absolutely trustwor- these to ask themselves, "If tive to trivial prejudice in
"Blessed are the peacemak- thy, it was this: Mr. Ford this is what liberty for the non-Jews and extraordinar-
ers, but they should wear is against war. He does oppressed comes to in the ily insensitive to the faults
not know any history nor
tin hats."
end, what is the use of of the Jews.
They are hypochrondriac
What anti-Semitism has he any knowledge of tolerance and the tradition
and morbidly defensive
there is in America is not in social facts. He was per- of asylum?"
suaded
that
wars
are
about their critics, and in-
the first instance due to
JEWS BLAMED
dulgent and complacent
Henry Ford or to any real made by international
belief in the nonsense about bankers. He heard that FOR ANTI-SEMITISM about what the Jewish
I waste no time myself people is and`does.
world conspiracy and the the international ban-
Races, not cursed with a
so-called "Protocols." It is kers were Jews. So he worrying about the injus-
not due in any considerable went for the Jews in tices of anti-Semitism. sense of inferiority, do not
degree to jealousy or to an order to hit the interna- There is too much injustice shrink from criticism. They
undervaluing of the powers tional bankers who, he in the world for any particu- initiate it. They beat their
and qualities of the Jewish thought, make war. lar concern about summer critics to it, as did the
people. It is not theological That's childish. Of course hotels ,and college frater- Prophets of the Old Testa-
nities. But the anti- ment.
or clerical in any considera- it is.
But the childishness of Semitism which has its root
They wash their dirty
ble part, nor economic as it
so largely is in Eastern Henry Ford is not the point. in our own weaknesses and linen in public, if you like,
the point is that when he failings I do worry about.
because they know by a
Europe.
I worry about the kind of instinctive wis-
"These things play a role, discovered that the root of
to be sure, but it is a con- evil was not the Jewish Jewish smart set in New dom that among ear-
tributory rather than a fun- bankers, but gold currency, York and the Jewish thbound men the distinc-
he worked himself up into would-be smart set. They tion is not between those
damental one.
"The fundamental fact as great a passion for fiat can in one minute un- who have dirty linen a' -
in the situation is that the money as ever he had about make more respect and those who have not, 1_
Jews are fairly distinct in the Jews. He was and is decent human kindliness between those who wash
their physical appear- striking at an evil in our than Einstein and Bran- themselves with criticism
ance and in the spelling society which he only dimly deis and Mack and Paul and those who do not.
They know, too , that what
of their names from the comprehends, and in the Warburg can build up in
counts in the long run is not
run of the American general darkness he hap- a year.
1 worry about upper what is said about you, but
people. They are, there- pened to stumble on the
Broadway on a Sunday af- what, in the depths of your
fore, inevitably con- Jews.
The Jewish international ternoon where everything own candor, you feel about
spicuous.
It follows that the vices of bankers happened to be that is feverish and unven- yourself.
When the Amefican Jews
civilization stand out in the more easily visible to his tilated in the congestion of a
Jews as under a magnifying untrained eye than the city rises up as a warning are really able to feel that
glass. And a very great deal, non-Jewish international that you cannot build up a they are working and trad-
decent civilization among ing and living in a manner
I believe much the greater bankers.
This faculty for catching people who have lost their their own profoundest in-
part, of ordinary anti-
Semitism in America is attention rather more eas- ancient piety and acquired stincts can approve, they
simply the startled recogni- ily than do other races is no new convictions, among can whistle at Henry Ford
with light hearts.
tion of evils that are not so part of the heritage of the people who, when they are
recognizable when they Jews. It is too big a fact to at last, after centuries of
All great art is the ex-
occur in people of less dis- complain about or to ignore. denial, free to go to the land pression of man's delight in
and
cleanse
their
bodies,
It is a fact which ought to
tinct characteristics.
own.
We all see more easily enter into the conscious- now huddle together in a God's work, not his —Ruskin
steam-heated
slum.
ness
of
every
Jew
in
the
de
what is wrong in the other , ,

tion that was made by
Lippmann, and it was not
one of self-pride in his
Jewishness.
It was an article that ap-
peared in the American He-
brew, April 14, 1922.
Rabbi Chiel located it
several years ago. Com-
menting on it, R.M. Re-
vere of the editorial staff
of the New Yorker wrote
to Rabbi Chiel:
"I was particularly struck
by the article on Jews in this
country, which I had never
seen before. So far as I
know, it was the only thing
he ever wrote on the subject
— at least for publication.
"I've always been curious
about his anti-Israel stands
(he once went to Cairo, I'm
pretty sure as Nasser's
guest) and his close connec-
tions with the House of
Morgan, when he might
more naturally have affil-
iated himself with the
Lehmans, the Kuhns, the
Loebs, et al., in whose world
Ire had grown up and with
many of them he had gone to
school.
"In his days, the Morgans
would not have hired a
Catholic, much less a Jew,
to empty the spittoons. This
piece tells a lot."

