12
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Friday, July 24, 1981
Record Budget for City of Hope
LOS ANGELES — A re-
ord operating budget of $62
illion for the year begin-
ning Oct. 1 was approved by
he delegates attending the
CASH
FOR YOUR ommonos L
PRECIOUS JEWELS
'Iakt dale
5041.
755 W. Big Beaver Rd.
(16 Mile at 1-75)
Troy, Michigan
Phone:
313-362-4500
City of Hope's 1981 national
biennial convention at the
Beverly Hilton Hotel.
Delegates unanimously
re-elected M.E. Hersch to
his fourth two-year term as
president of the free, non-
sectarian medical and re-
search center located in
Duarte, Calif.
NCSY Parley
NEW YORK — More
than 100 teenagers from the
United States and Canada
are scheduled to participate
in the Southern Region
Summer Encampment of
the National Conference of
Synagogue Youth, Aug.
10 19 in Millington, Tenn.
-
See "THE LEADER" Today
Morris
Buick
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W 7 Mile At Lodge X-Way
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Author Me yer Levin Fondly Remembered
By VICTOR M.
BIENSTOCK
Special to the Jewish News
Bob Casey, one of the
great American news-
papermen of all time, once
wrote a book, "Such In-
teresting People," in which
he talked about many of the
great and not-so-great in
the profession he loved. One
of his episodes dealt with
Meyer Levin whose recent
death in Jerusalem was
such a great loss to Ameri-
can and Jewish letters and
to all who knew him. The
Casey book, I'm afraid, is
long out of print and I have
to paraphrase from mem-
ory.
Mr. Levin started his
news career on the Chicago
Daily News back in the
early 1920s, a youngster
newly out of the University
of Chicago, trying to figure
out what set him apart, as a
Jew, from the great major-
ity about him.
The Chicago Daily News
was, in those days, and still
is one of America's great
newspapers and young
Levin was soon regarded by
its editors as one of its most
promising young recruits,
Casey reported. It came as a
surprise, therefore, when
Levin strode in one day and
submitted his resignation.
He was, he explained, going
to pre-Israel Palestine to
ock's
CloLhes of West Bloomfield
AFTER INVENTORY
1/2 OFF
SAL E
ON A SELECTED GROUP OF
SUITS, SPORTCOATS, SLACKS, SHOES
AND A LARGE SELECTION OF FURNISHINGS
FEATURING SUCH FAMOUS NAMES AS:
• Lanvin
• Givenchy • le Baron
• Rubin Bros.
• Bally
• Adolfo
• San Remo • Oleg Cassini • Corneliani
• Jean-Paul Germain • Society Brand
*Alterations at Cost
live and work on a kibutz. which Levin promptly con- spread that he was a dif-
Few of his colleagues fiscated. The War Depart- ficult man to deal with be-
•
on the paper had been ment, in turn, confiscated cause he had a persecution
aware of the depth of his the paintings just as the complex and would sue at
absorption in the Jewish ONA had completed ar- the drop of a hat.
He was a man of great -
condition and of his rangements for their syndi-
enthusiasm. At one stage he
commitment to Zionism. cation.
Levin was obsessed by the became interested in
It was a lifelong commit-
fate of the Jews and grilled marionettes and spent al-
ment.
His editors made the ex- me time after time about most all his time in the the-
pected efforts to dissuade the Jewish survivors I had ater. After that, he was in-
him from going and not to run across in Italy and in volved in puppets and once
abandon the career the southern and western dragged me down to Green-
paper offered him. But France. An old Paris hand, wich Village to watch a
Levin went off to live the life he had already made con- puppet show. Films were
of a kibutznik and as he did tact with Jewish survivors another powerful interest
with all his enthusiasms, in the French capital and but here, at least, he wrote
lived it to the hilt. When the reported on their tribula- whatever scripts were re-
Arab riots broke out in tions. quired.
He was among the first
Despite these distrac-
1929, the Chicago Daily
News editors cabled him, if not the first American tions, his literary output
expecting that he would correspondent to get into was remarkable for its ex-
cover the breaking news for the Nazi concentration tent — novels, magazine ar-
the paper. It took a few days camps and what he saw tides, a syndicated column
before they heard from there affected him so that in which he was encouraged
Levin and then it was a he spent years after the by Philip Hochstein, then of
war in aiding the Aliya, the Newhouse Newspapers,
terse cable, "I am well."
Torn between his desire Bet or illegal immigration and film criticism.
to go back to reporting and of the survivors into pre-
For a good many years
the duty he felt he owed to Israel Palestine. And he divided his time be-
the Yagur kibutz in its time with Tereska Torres, the tween a unique home on
of danger, he felt he had to French novelist who be- the Israeli coast and New
stay with the kibutz. But came his wife, he made York. His books were vir-
the elders of Yagur agreed his famous films of the tually all devoted to his
that he would accomplish survivors' struggle to primary interests — the
more for the Yishuv as a re- reach pre-Israel Pales - American Jew's struggle
porter and he went back to tine-
to come to terms with his
In his journeying around Jewishness, his role in
reporting.
Our paths crossed inter- Europe seeking out the the non-Jewish world
mittently over the years — Jewish remnant, Levin and the rebuilding of a
newspapermen are always found Otto Frank and Jewish homeland.
running into old colleagues through him the Anne
Although many of his
in unlikely places. We met Frank diary which he
books were well received
in Paris in 1944. Levin, who brought back to New York and warmly praised, Levin
had been with the Office of and dramatized. That re- never received the recogni-
War Information, went over suited in one of the bitterest
tion as a novelist and in-
to Paris as war correspon- chapters of his life and the terpreter of the soul of the
a
dent for the Overseas News anger and frustration that American Jew that he de-
Agency and the Jewish it caused remained with served. And this, I believe,
him for years along with the
Telegraphic Agency.
was in good part due to his
Levin was a driven conviction that he had been refusal to conform to the us-
man; he was the first out victimized by a conspiracy ages and practices of an
of our billets at the Scribe of the left.
Levin signed a contract elite group in the New York
Hotel in the morning and
literary establishment that
the last one in at night. with a New York producer was powerful enough to con-
in
which,
apparently,
-
he
The New York office ca-
fer a reputation overnight.
bled me to make Levin ceded most of his rights. The
I treasure a yellowing
producer
had
a
new
reduce the length of his
cables. I read his cables dramatization prepared by copy of his autobiography,
and I couldn't cut them Frances and Albert Hackett "In Search," published in
and wouldn't. Then the and it was their version Paris in 1950 and inscribed
to me "with best wishes
top sergeant at the which won world acclaim.
Levin
complained
that
from
a comrade in the same
SHAEF motor pool came •
business." It is a
after me. "That guy's got the Hackett version de- tough
tough business, journalism,
a death wish," he corn- stroyed the essential Jewish
plained. "He's wrecking character of the Anne but as Bob Casey pointed
story, thus depriving out, it attracts such in-
every Jeep I've got. You
it
of
so
much of its signifi- teresting people.
gotta
make
him
get
a
gotta
cance.
He
never forgave the
driver." I didn't even
producer, the Hacketts, Lil-
want to try.
Levin was fighting his lian Hellman and other Orthodox Halt
own war. It was an in- leftwing New York literati City of David Dig
tense one and it covered a whom he held responsible
JERUSALEM (JTA) —
what he considered the
lot of territory as well. for
mutilation of the Anne - Pressure by the ultra-
Above and beyond his
Orthodox community of
assigned task of report- Frank story.
Jerusalem halted the ar-
Under
the
contract
he
ing the war, Levin felt a
cheological work at the City
personal obligation to had signed with the pro-
of David which is considered
find Jewish officers and ducer, Levin could not the most important ar-
GIs in battle and to tell even publish his own cheological site in the coun-
their story so that the dramatization of the try. The work at the site was
world would know that Anne Frank diary nor to have begun last week.
the Jews were doing their produce it even privately
The ultra-Orthodox Jews
share in fighting to de- and it wasn't until an Is- staged protests at the site,
raeli
group
produced
it
stroy Hitlerism.
protesting that the excava-
The Overseas News about a year ago that it tions were to be carried out
ever
reached
the
boards.
Agency cable address was
in i an ancient Jewish cemet-
"Supernews" and Will Lang Litigation over the case ery. Work was suspended
continued
for
over
a
de-
of Life who frequently went
pending a resolution of the
on news forays with Levin, cadeuntil Levin, conflict.
thoroughly
frustrated
nicknamed him "Superjew"
The site includes a
— a soubriquet of which and convinced that he pyramid-like structure ap-
would
never
get
justice,
Levin was proud.
parently dating from King
Levin was probably the accepted a monetary set
Solomon's time. There is
only accredited Allied war dement:
correspondent ever to take The litigation hurt him speculation whether the
the formal surrender of a financially — he was not in structure was connected
Nazi general. The general a high income bracket — with the citadel of the an-
was carrying a large and it hurt him profession- cient city, or served as royal
portfolio of war paintings ally since the word was tombs of the House of David.
-
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