PURELY COMMENTARY
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Survivalism . . . And Some Vanishing Jews
Survivalism is an anguishing anx-
iety in human experience.
In the Jewish process there is a re-
cord both of disappearance as well as re-
demption, the Baal Teshuvim, the retur-
nees, as well as the totally indifferent.
It is perfectly proper to recall one
indelible incident in the American
Jewish experience. When American
Jewry celebrated its 250th anniversary
in 1906, the committee that supervised
the countrywide events included 250 of
the most prominent American Jews. By
the time of the Tercentenary, observed
in 1956, not a single descendent of that
array of prominence was known to
Jewry.
Now an evidence in sensationalism,
on the score of Jewish abandonment of
its legacies, emerges in the popular
weekly column "Digest of the Yiddish
Press" featured in the Jewish Post and
Opinion. It is authored by the former Re-
form Rabbi Samuel Silver who now re-
sides in Florida. His column renders a
very important service because it
scrutinized the Yiddish press skillfully
and very often becomes a revealing fac-
tor about otherwise hidden facts about
people and events. In fact, Post and
Opinion earns acclaim for giving wide
recognition to the fact-searching and
translating abilities of Rabbi Silver.
Calling attention to an interesting
background involving conversions to
Christianity, Rabbi Silver introduced the
following in his most recent column:
In England there lives a
Hugh Montefiore, the great-
nephew of the champion of
Judaism, Moses Montefiore. He is
an Anglican bishop. In New Ca-
naan, Conn., there's a lawyer
named Stephen Wise, the
grandson of the great tribune of
Judaism, Rabbi Wise. He is in-
termarried and shuns contact
with Jews. Now we discover,
through Mordecai Strigler, of the
Forward, that in Israel there's a
Nahum Goldmann, grandson of
the ardently Jewish Dr. Nahum
Goldmann. He's negroid. The
offspring of Dr. Goldmann's son
to a Negro, young Goldmann os-
cillated between Paris, where he
lived in opulence, and Harlem,
where his maternal grandmother,
who had 11 children, lived in
near poverty.
As he approached 13, young
Goldmann was asked by his
Jewish relatives whether he
wanted to become bar mitzvah.
He had never heard the term and
was not given any inkling about
Jewishness either from his
Jewish grandparents or his black
ones. Furthermore, he suffered
from an identity dilemma. In
Harlem, his Negro relatives re-
garded him as white. When he fi-
nally went to Israel his Jewish
relatives called him "neger."
In Israel he is often looked
upon with suspicion and the
police will every once in a while
detain him because they think
he's an Arab suspect. Now in his
20's he gave vent to his be-
wilderment. To a reporter he
said, "Sound a warning to people
who want to get intermarried.
You may indeed find happiness
in the union, but think of what
you are doing to your putative
children. Beware of what may
happen to them."
What a unique way of admonishing
avoidance of mixed marriages!
2
Friday, July 11, 1986
And how dramatic the source that
warns against intermarriage and mis-
cegenation!
Scions of very important Jewish
families have vanished in the maelstrom
of a principle that invites adherence to
an obligation to keeping the Jewish fam-
ily intact. The increase in mixed mar-
riages is an invitation to an accounting
for the experiences, in both the black
and white communities, of Nahum
Goldmann II.
Such are the elements that sym-
bolize what had been a sensation in the
American press, the many series of arti-
cles about The Vanishing Jew." Yet the
survivalist is ever present. And there is
a frequent appearance of the Baal
Teshuva — the Penitent. To know and
understand the trend, Jewry must al-
ways be aware of both elements.
Schocken Books
As Reviver Of Interest
In Earlier Best Sellers
Schocken Books is a -publishing
house with a remarkable background. It
commenced with popularity in Germany
and became a leader as publisher of im-
portant Jewish-interest works. Then it
established roots in Israel as well as in
the United States.
In this country it became a leading
sponsor of works that served in compil-
ing the Holocaust Library. In that
capacity it also became the publisher of
Elie Wiesel's vast collection of writings
on the Holocaust, Chasidism and the
interpretive commentaries that made
him a leader in keeping alive the mem-
ory of the Nazi sufferers.
Schocken adds to the departmental
values of its selected literary works by
reprinting many of the popular works
that drew the limelight to American
Jewry in the early part of this century.
The works were not necessarily always
complimentary. Some exposed the follies
of those who were affected by transfor-
mations from the newcoming immigrant
class to roles in the social life, even poli-
tics.
Exemplary is the reappearance from
Schocken Books of the Haunch, Paunch
and Jowl novel; that first appeared in
1923. Samuel Ornitz authored this novel
about a crusty, paunchy Jewish judge
whose affections are subtitled in the
novel Allrightnicks Row as The Making
of a Professional Jew."
Such works left many bad tastes, as
they might today, yet it has value to
know a literary trend of half a century
ago, when studying the maturing of the
immigrants. The comparisons with cur-
rent experiences have value in testing
the past.
Of great value is the contrasting of
the aggravating with the remarkable
story of a writer who gained great fame
as interpreter of the values attained in
acquiring American citizenship. Mary
Antin rose to great heights and was
widely recognized for her tribute to the
land whose freedom she cherished when
she wrote The Promised Land in 1912.
Her fame really began in 1899 with the
publication of From Poltyzk to Boston,
which she wrote when she was 13. This
is the then-popularized work that has
now made its reappearance among the
Schocken works enriching its paperback
library.
Israel Zangwill wrote a complimen-
tary introduction to this earlier Antin
book in which she acclaims the glories
THE DE TROIT JEWISH NEWS
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<4;
Moses Montefiore
she attained upon coming to this coun-
try.
Philip Cowen, then editor of the
American Hebrew, wrote in a note that
"Antin was 13 when she wrote From
Plotzk to Boston, not 11 as Israel
Zangwill claimed in his introduction to
the original edition."
Pamella S. Nadell of the American
University faculty, in the introduction to
the net, reprinted text, provides biog-
raphical data about Antin and describes
her journey on the immigrant vessel to
this country. The description of the
18-day journey on the immigrant ship is
a reminder to immigrants of nearly a
century ago of the difficulties no longer
encountered at present.
The family reunion described in the
Antin embracing of her new home and is
in itself a contribution to nostalgic recol-
lections about the immigrants arising
here. In the centennial year of the
Statue of Liberty, the many Antin
stories are deeply moving accounts of the
transformation from the bitterness of the
Old World to the glories of the new life
in the American sphere of freedom.
This is the road toward linking the
generations as a Mary Antin story also
fuses two centuries into a revivalism of
interest. The interest is nostalgic and
immense.
`Martin Buber On Zion':
Negatiires, Positives
Bi-Nationalism Probed
Martin Buber could not have had a
better interpreter of his views which still
have a relevance to Zionist doctrine and
terminology. The famous philosopher
had views that conflicted with both "Es-
tablishment," if the interpreters and
leaders could thus be defined, as well as
the masses of Zionist affiliated. Yet, he
was a Zionist in the spiritual sense.
While differing he was supporting the
right of Jews to self-determination.
His early . views, expressed before
statehood of Israel, are embodied in a
republished collection of his speeches de-
livered in 1944 in Jerusalem. Schocken
now presents the series History of an
Idea, including the volume Martin Buber
on Zionism. Many of his views emerge
again as unacceptable. His emphasis on
bi-nationalism may not hold water, and
one wonders whether he would have al-
Nahum Goldmann
tered most of his approaches. Yet they
are important as history and as back-
ground of a great movement in which he
had a share.
That is why this volume has great
significance as a chapter in Zionism. The
foreword to this selected collection of
speeches by another eminent scholar,
Nahum N. Glatzer, increases the value
of the book because Dr. Glatzer provides
a review of the Buber roles at world
Jewish meetings, including the Anglo-
American Committee of Inquiry which
later developed into a partition plan.
Dr. Glatzer indicates Prof. Buber's
association with Hebrew University
President Judah L. Magnes in forming
and encouraging the Brit Shalom move-
ment advocating bi-nationalism for
Palestine. He does go into a detailed
analysis of the failures of that task.
Buber's views of the Anglo-American
Committee and the noted philosopher's
pleadings for non-prejudice in dealing
with the Arabs are defined in an impor-
tant resume of that experience in the
Glatzer introductory commentaries, and
the following is a thorough account of
Buber the bi-nationalist who yet re-
mained the "Zionist idealist":
Buber's testimony before the
Ernest Bevin appointed Anglo-
American Committee of Inquiry
in Jerusalem (March 14, 1946)
gave him still another opportu-
nity to speak up on behalf of a
bi-national Palestine. However,
before stating this political goal
he spoke of the meaning of this
land to the Jewish people. From
its very beginning this people
was confronted with a task "to
establish in Canaan a model and
just community." The biblical
prophets "interpreted this task as
obliging the community to send
streams of social and political
justice throughout the world," an
activity that was to lead
"towards the advent of the King-
dom of God on earth, an activity
in which all the peoples were to
cooperate." This Messianic im-
pulse was the force behind at-
tempts to reshape public life in
medieval Christianity.
With this heritage modern
Judaism could not possibly
"create another national move-
ment of the European type."
Zionism aims at "the creation of
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