2 Friday, December 23, 1983
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Purely Commentary
Good Will as a Seasonal
Objective, Always Demanding
Respect Exceeding Tolerance
A Potpourri of Topics Relating to
the Seasonal and Good Will . . .
Politicizing Hunger, Yentl Movie
Albert Einstein made an interesting comment in ear-
lier years when there was much want everywhere. He is
quoted in "Cosmic Religion," saying in 1931:
"An empty stomach is not a good political adviser."
Is it applicable today? In any case, hunger is not a
political issue. It must be treated as a social responsibility.
By Philip
Slomovitz
talked to me a few times, but mostly she wanted to
hear my opinion of what she had to say. I hope it
turns out better than the movie they made from
'The Magician of Lublin,' which I disliked in-
tensely. I have my doubts. I hear she wants to
direct the movie as well as star in it. This doesn't
sound like such a good idea."
Which is what everyone was trying to tell
Barbra. A woman director - as well as producer as
well as co-screenwriter and on top of that the star
of it all — with music yet! Oy vey! (That the film
manages to deal with this androgynous, poten-
tially scandalous sexual complication with good
taste, some humor and delicacy is a tribute to
Streisand's talents on all four fronts — but more
about that later.)
So after seeing "Yentl" at a critics' preview,
the first person I called when I got home was —
you guessed it — Isaac Bashevis Singer.
"Isaac?" He answered the phone himself after
two rings.
"Who is this?" In his unmistakable voice.
"Mashe."
"How are you?"
"Fine, I just returned from a screening of
`Yentl.',Have you seen it?" I wanted a comment, an
observation, a critique from the creator of the
Yentl persona.
"No, not yet. Maybe later. I sold it for a pit-
tance ... and they'll make millions."
The pittance, as reported in the media, was in
the neighborhood-of $60,000. Considering the
film's $22 million budget, and the fact that the sale
of the story took place years before Singer's Nobel
Prize status, this retroactive regret is under-
standable.
This subject always emerges this time of year. People
exchange gifts, in inter-religious circles there is talk about
tolerance and some emphasize Good Will. In the analyses,
there is always the resentment of the very term
Streisand and Singer:
"tolerance." To be "tolerated" is to be "endured," and no one
`Yentl' as a High-Ranking
consents to be so dismissed.
Film to Be Seen Again
This is a Christian religious season. Now the seasonal
becomes humanized and the gift from Jew to Christian
"Yentl" merits being seen a second time.
becomes a normal, neighborly exchange and objective.
Barbra Streisand has earned such a compliment.
A very distinguished theologian had a definition for
Much in the film is subject to differing views. The
such objectiveness. Author Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-
Jewish approaches are not necessarily all perfect. But the
1894) provided a definition nearly a century ago. In an
sincerity is evident and must be admired.
essay in the American Hebrew (now merged with the New
After a second viewing, the songs, "Papa, Can You See
York Jewish Week), he admonished the generations:
Me Now?" and "Papa, I Need You," will re-echo and will
In the midst of all triumphs of Christianity, it
invite memorizing.
is well that the stately synagogue should lift its
It's true that the Shtetl is not so realistically apparent
walls by the side of the aspiring cathedral, a per-
in the marvelous film: But the theme is realistic. Perhaps it
petual reminder that there are many mansions in
will be judged superior to the text from which it was bor-
the Father's earthly house as well as in the
rowed for a very long film based on a very short narrative
heavenly one; that civilized humanity, longer in
by Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer.
time and broader in space than any historical
Why hasn't Singer commented on Streisand and her
form of belief, is mightier than any one institution
film? Is it possible that as of this writing he will continue to
or organization it includes.
boycott the movie and his own theme?
That so eminent an American should have given em-
, Many reviews have been written about "Yentl." In
phasis to Good Will in such an inspiring message is cause
their totality they are favorable and appreciative of the
for using it as a guideline for respectful relationships
Barbra Streisand skills. The most interesting of the re-
among neighbors, thus establishing the highest codes in views was featured in the English section of the Jewish
citizenship. It is in such a spirit that the Merry Christmas
Daily Forward, Dec. 9. In the three-page review, Mashe
greeting by Jew to Christian retains a goal for honorable
Leon told of her conversations with Singer. Her text speaks
treatment of workable Good. Will among faiths.
for itself. Perhaps Singer's "annoyance" is best described in
these quotations from the Mashe Leon article:
Hunger . . . Unpoliticized
In an interview with Isaac Bashevis Singer in
The Meese Mess raises an important question: will
People Magazine last year he was asked: "Have
Mashe Leon is also critical of "Yentl" to some degree.
hunger and the urgency of solving the problem be made a
you spoken to Barbra Streisand about the movie
But she shares the view that "Yentl" is worth seeing a
political issue, or will it be treated as a social and human
she is making from your short story, 'Yentl the
second time and like this commentator she plans to do so.
problem?
Yeshiva Boy?' " Singer replied: "She came and
What better compliment for Barbra Streisand.
German Papers Remember the Night of Broken Glass
By ALBERT KRAUS
(Editor's note: The fol-
lowing article first ap-
peared in German in the
Nov. 10 edition of the
Saarbruecker Zeitung
and was re-printed in
English in the Nov'. 27
German Tribune.)
The countrywide excesses
against the Jewish commu-
nity in Nazi Germany on
Nov. 9, 1938 have come to be
known by the euphemism of
the Reichskristallnacht, or
night of crystal.
Hundreds of synagogues
were gutted that evening.
Thousands of Jewish shop
windows were smashed and
looted. Jewish homes were
vandalized.
Hundreds of thousands of
Jews, were terrorized,
hunted and, in some cases,
shot. A "campaign of ven-
geance" was let loose on the
Jewish community.
Yet its only crime was
to have been declared the
No. 1 enemy of the Nazi
state. In 1938 there were
still over 300,000 Jews liv-
ing in Germany.
The pretext for this cam-
paign was the assassination
of a German embassy offi-
cial in Paris, Ernst vom
Rath, by a 17-year-old Ger-
man Polish Jew, Herschel
Grynszpan, on Nov. 7, 1938.
Grynszpan's aim was to
draw attention to what had
happened to about 17,000
Polish Jews of German ori-
gin, including his own fam-
ily.
Shortly beforehand they
had been expelled, forcibly
and barbarously, across the
Polish border.
After conferring with
Hitler, Propaganda
Minister Goebbels took
the assassination as a
pretext for an officially
organized nationwide
raid on Jewish property.
Squads of Nazis, mostly
SA men, trooped through
villages and towns
throughout the country
armed with clubs and other
weapons.
They laid waste to Jewish
property, devastated and
set fire to synagogues and
roughed up Jewish citizens.
There cannot even be
said to have been mass
enthusiasm. Contempor-
ary reports seem to indi-
cate that most people
looked on impassively,
shrugging their shoul-
ders as it were.
Heydrich, the
Sicherheitsdienst leader,
took stock of what had been
accomplished on Nov.
11. He said 815 Jewish
shops, 29 department stores
and 171 homes had been
gutted or laid waste.
Seventy-six synagogues
had been demolished and
"I saw the ruins of gutted 191 gutted. Over 20,000
synagogues and Jewish Jews were also taken into
homes," wrote an eye- custody and sent to concen-
witness from Berlin, "and tration camp.
empty shops in which noth-
We will, never know for
ing was left but broken sure how many Jews were
glass, smashed furniture killed or driven to suicide.
and vandalized remnants of The Nazi Party's own court
stock.
dealt with 91 deaths.
"I was told that pro-
In nearly all cases the
Nazi teachers had taken killers were let off on the
their classes out to see ground that their orders
how the Jew had been had been open to misin-
dealt their "just punish- terpretation.
ment."
The Jews had to meet the
"With not so much as a cost themselves. Insurance
word had these teachers claims were dismissed by
seen fit to chide children the state, which later even
who filled their pockets ordered them to pay RM1
with sweets and chocolate billion in "damages."
stolen from Jewish shops."
The pogrom was as dev-
The police, obeying or- astating in the Saar as it
ders, paid no attention to was everywhere else in the
such excesses and the wave Reich even though the
of destruction. Instead, they number of Jewish residents
dealt with critical com- had plummeted since 1933.
ments by- members of the
In 1933, there were 4,638
public. .
Jews in the Saar. By 1938-
Nazi leaders claimed 1939 roughly 90 percent
there had been a spontane- had emigrated, mainly to
ous expression of popular France and Luxembourg.
anger, but this was a prop-
aganda claim few chose to
Those that were left
believe.
were publicly ill-treated,
405
Aii111101111*
harassed, jeered and was the subject of snide anti-Semitic terms of the
humiliated.
comments by leading Jewish temple, a disgrace to
Many were taken into writers, including a lead- the town, having been burnt
custody, especially the ' ing article in the Saar- down.
well-to-do, and their homes bruecker Zeitung 45
In the wake of the
and businesses laid waste.
years ago.
Nearly all the
The Star of David as it fell Reichskristallnacht a
synagogues were gutted. from the burning ruins of plague of further official.
They included those in the Saarbruecken syna- harassment came down
Saarbruecken, Dillingen, gogue, the newspaper on the remaining Jews in
Merzig, Neunkirchen, editorialized, symbolized Germany, who were now
Ottweiler, St. Wendel, Il- the star of international well and truly beyond the
lingen, Brotdorf and Saar- Jewry, which was similarly pale.
wellingen.
on the decline. '
Their freedom of move-
Newspapers in the Saar
The Neue Abendzeitung, ment and activity had long
had long been brought to a Saarbruecken evening been restricted. These re-
heel by the Nazis. They had paper, referred derisively to strictions were intensified.
little or nothing to say about
long-awaited destructive A few years later the Nazi
the raids on Jewish people fire.
authorities opted for a "final
and their property.
The Saar-und Blies- solution" that sent millions
The arson that laid zeitung, Neunkirchen, of European Jews to the gas
waste to the synagogues wrote in jubilant, primitive chamber.
These photographs from Berlin show SA Brownshirts blocking access to a
Jewish store and the Oranienburger Strasse synagogue after it was set on fire.