‘, ?', 10 Friday, August 19, 1903 11 1.?‘!ri.ii[IU 4 ! THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS • • Madison Reveals Lewtsohn Agony, Achievement (Continued from Page 1) foreign fruit company which failed within three months. Despondent at being a ne'er-do-well, he readily acted on the sugges- tion of his wealthy relatives that he migrate to South Carolina, where a cousin of his wife had already estab- lished himself in one of the small towns. With his little capital he opened a clothing store, but he could not make it profitable and moved to Charleston where he be- • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • NOBODY KNOWS • • • • • • • • • • • • • BROADWAY .114t LIKE NEDERLANDER! rio 17° % INCLUSIVE FROM 264 °° NEIL SIMON'S New Comedy NON FOOVEIC BEACH MEMOIRS 0%1 0°1 BAR & BAT MITZVAH TOURS AVAILABLE • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • ISRAEL Hanuka Holiday • • • • • • ISRAEL Charters S 429 Cy $62914! • • • • • • • • • • • •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • December 18-29. 1983 COMPLETE PRICE * FROM DETROIT VIa TWA 539 NEDERLANDER TRAVEL CORPORATION 30300 Telegraph Rd . Suite 143. Birmingham. MI 48010 • 0131540-0440 / Outstate 18001392-2515 Daily 8 a.m. - 7 p.m. • Sal. 9 a.m. - S'p.m. • Sun. 11 a.m. - 4 p.m. WE SPECIALIZE IN ALL DOMESTIC A INTERNATIONAL VACATION TRAM came a furniture salesman. There were no public schools in Charleston in 1890, and Lewisohn was enrolled in a Methodist elementary school. Re- pelled by the chewing- tobacco spit of his teacher, he persuaded his mother to prepare him for high school. Having no inkling of his Jewish background, he was readily attracted to his prevailing Christian milieu. He attended Sun- day school and often re- mained for the church service. As he stated la- ter, "I accepted the Gos- pel story and the obvious implications of Pauline Christianity without question,." Unlike his parents, however, who clung to their German cultural upbringing, Lewisohn became thoroughly Americanized. At the age of 12 he YOU CAN HELP BUILD CHRISTIAN SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL JOIN ECUMENICAL TOUR OF ISRAEL October 2-14 Call American Jewish Committee, 965-3353 or Marjorie Saulson, 642-7784 BEE KALT TRAVEL SERVICE the QUALITY TRAVEL SPECIALISTS "Welcomes Home" the Opperer Family and Friends • entered the Methodist high school and was.• puzzled when some of the boys re- ferred to him as a Jew. He made few friends. Taking advantage of his father's membership in the local li- brary society, he read books available to him. About that time he began to write verse, and his translation of several of Horace's poems was praised by his teacher and parents. When he graduated at age 15, he entered the College of Char- leston. His growing admira- tion of English and Ameri- can literature furthered his aspiration to become a teacher of English. On graduating with honors and elected to Phi Beta Kappa, he was offered a teaching position in an Episcopal school. But the aged minister who owned the school rose from a sick- bed to veto the appoint- ment. Puzzled and per- turbed to have been disqual- ified because of . his presumed Jewishness, he was advised by a friendly teacher to do graduate study in a northern univer- sity as the best means of ob- taining employment as a teacher. Borrowing the re- quired money, he entered the graduate school at Columbia University. In the second year he applied for a teaching post to several colleges, but no offers came. Notic- ing that fellow students whom he considered in- ferior to himself did get offers, he inquired about _ it to the secretary of the department and was in- formed "how terribly hard it was for a man of Jewish faith to get a good position." Lewisohn felt devastated; For years a presumed Christian, naively ignoring his Jewish birth, he could JUNKETS! JUNKETS! FOR QUALIFIED PLAYERS VEGAS, TAHOE, ATI. CITY, ETC. RYKE TRAVEL 356-8400 JUNE 1983 ARBIXCEMENTS BY BEE KALI 1114YEL CALL H.M.H.F. LOWEST FARES EVERYWHERE 557-4422 Israel, Cruises, the Orient - wherever you want to go - give a call to the QUALITY TRAVEL SPECIALISTS Bee Kalt Travec , INSTANT COLOR PASSPORTS ID. & VISA PHOTOS 4628 North Woodward Ave. Royal Oak, Michigan 48072 (313) 549-6733 PROFESSIONAL PORTRAIT LIGHTING 1352-70301 LEO KNIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY Celebrating 25 years of service 26511 W. 12 Mile Rd. Comer Nwthesten Hwy. not understand why he was being stigmatized as a Jew. After obtaining his MA de- gree one of his teachers helped him get work with a specialized publishing firm. Leading a lonely And in- secure life in New York, longing for feminine affec- tion and troubled by his failure to gain the friend- ship of any girl, chance brought him the acquain- tance of Mary Childs, a woman of 42 years, divorced and the mother of four chil- dren. Nineteen years his senior, she was still attrac- tive enough to appeal to the gullible and feminine- hungry Lewisohn. In his in- nocence he accepted her ad- vances — only to be told by her that he had to marry her. Later he wrote: "I plunged into the adventure that darkened a large part of my life." •Still not fully aware of his commitment and eager to write fiction, he decided to live with his parents in Charleston until he was able to earn some money from his writing. Mary, however, wrote him letters that aroused his desire to be with her, and he gained his mother's consent for Mary to visit him. Unaware of the pain his dismal marriage was causing his parents, he wrote a number of stories only to find that maga- zine editors wanted romantic endings. He next decided to write a novel, but that too was promptly rejected. De- pressed by failure, and having become painfully aware of the burden he was putting on his over- worked father, he and Mary returned to New York. To earn some money he began to write for Munsey magazines, mechanically contrived narratives for which he was paid a cent a word. He also managed to interest a small publisher in his novel, but it failed to,at- tract Victorian-oriented readers. He also did hackwork for magazines and book publishers, earn- ing less than Mary needed for herself and her children. In 1910, Lewisohn's Columbia classmate, William Ellery Leonard, learning of his financial plight, persuaded the head of the German department of the University of Wison- sin to employ Lewisohn as a teacher of German at a sal- ary of $1,000 a year. In need of additional income, he translated German books for B. W. Huebsch. He also wrote a study of "German Style" to enhance his posi- tion in the department. For some years this oner- ous economic burden had been making him acutely aware of his tragic marital misstep, but he was still too conventional and idealistic to consider drastic action. A year later, a col- league of his was ap- pointed head of the Ger- man department at Ohio State University and per- suaded Lewisohn to go with him by offering him an additional $400 in sal- ary. As late as 1913 he still did not think of himself as a Jew and refused Horace Kallen's invitation to help him es- trablish a Menora Society in the University of Wiscon- sin. Some of his colleagues, however, considered hini a Jew, and with the outbreak of World War I began to agi- tate against him as a Ger- man sympathizer. So viru- lent had this antipathy be- come by 1917 that he took advantage of his entitled sabbatical and he and his family left for New York. Shortly after Armistice in November 1918, Lewisohn was offered the position of dramatic critic on "The Na- tion. Soon associating for the first time with literary and theatrical men and women who shared his humanitarian and artistic views, he became all the more conscious of his mari- tal mess and resolved to free himself from it. He had come to despise Mary and her- children, and his re- sentment against them fed on the memory of his drudgery to support their extravagances. His wide and profound erudition in dramaturgy had gradually estab- lished him as the most perceptive critic of the contemporary theater. His growing reputation brought him offers of re- munerative . lectures across the country. His appointment as associate editor enabled him also to review books and write editorials and arti- cles on topics of interest to him. Lewisohn had now become fully aware of his intrinsic Jewishness and decided to write about his life as a youth and young man in order to indicate why he had never thought of being Jewish, why he accepted Christianity as a matter of course, and how he suffered for many years from anti- Semitism. The book, "Up Stream" (1922), written in impassioned and persuasive prose, was a devastating in- dictment of his American milieu. For Lewisohn had made crystal clear his dedication to the ideals of the Founding Fathers and his intellectual preparation to teach the language he loved — only to be rejected and insulted be- cause of his Jewish origin. Despite the expected un- favorable criticism of con- servative reviewers, the book's popularity and effec- tiveness were unusually widespread, making it a landmark addition to the American literature of the 1920 s . (Charles Madison's biography of Ludwig Lewisohn will be contin- ued in next week's Jewish News). . Don't build on shifting sands.