PURELY COMMENTARY
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Shipler's Pulitzer Prize: Patrilineal Curiosity
It is a month-old news item: that the
1987 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction was
awarded to New York Times' former Israel
correspondent David K. Shipler for Arab
and Jew: Wounded Spirit in a Promised
Land, a NYTimes Press publication.
This is a book that created much
dispute. For many Jews and Israelis it was
agonizing. Perhaps Arabs felt the same
way.
One way of judging the value of this
acclaimed book is to study the contrasts,
the confrontations, in a number of
statements quoted in the book from
Israelis and Arabs. Here is a sampling of
it indicating the viewpoints defining prize-
winning Arab and Jew:
"When I settled in a kibbutz in the
Galilee, we were fired upon by the
Arabs who didn't want us there, in
'38. But as soon as the troubles
ceased, or stopped for a while, I
managed to make good friends
with the Arabs, and this friend-
ship — not only did I enjoy it, it
proved strong in the times of war
that came afterwards. So my ex-
perience is that not only is it
necessary, it's also possible."
Dov Yermiya, Israeli Jew
"They feel the same way as
Jews. Education is the most im-
portant thing. What do you want
your son to be? They give you ex-
actly the same answers as the
Jews. They want him to be univer-
sity educated, in the top occupa-
tions. They don't want their
children to be farmers, to be
workers. I call this the Israeliza-
tion of the Arabs. They are deep-
ly immersed in Israeli values and
David Shipler
society. This is also a special quali-
ty of Palestinian society: You have
to have movable property, and
education is that."
Sammy Smooha,
Sociologist, Haifa University
"I think even if all of a sudden
Arafat were to sit down with Meir
Kahane and terror were to be
forsworn for generations, I think
these fears would be a very hard
thing to eradicate."
Brett Goldberg, American Israeli
"You must come and conquer
it by settlement — not by war, not
by fighting, but by holding it with
your body, by living in it . . . The
peace process, with Egypt, was
terrible, like something that
awakens the germs of disease, a
catalyst of Diaspora thinking —
the idea that if you want the
peoples of the world to be nice to
you and let you live, bend a little,
give a little. But the more we bent
our heads, the more people op-
pressed us. Our bending does not
result in the world respecting us.
Just the opposite. Everybody
despises us:'
Daniella Weiss, West Bank settler
"I've had friends killed by the
Israelis, but I can't say that I have
to get even with all Israelis or that
I have to kill every Israeli I can get
my hands on . . . It's just that not
all people think the same. I have
an open mind. I don't hate them.
I hate the ones in uniform who are
controlling the place."
"Mah_moud," Arab travel agent
"I gave a seminar two months
ago in Haifa. I asked, "Have you
ever met an Arab?" Of thirty
teachers in the room, only four
said they had. This was the first
talk they had ever had. For this
reason the image of the Arab is
very false. The image is extracted
from the PLO fighter or the bombs
or the primitive worker. In addi-
tion to that, there is some
literature, and this, as kids, makes
a profound impact?'
Walid Sadik, Israeli-Arab
social-studies teacher
and politician
Joseph Pulitzer
The debate will go on and Shipler's
studies of Promised Land contrasts will
surely continue to be quoted and utilized
for whatever purpose a prejudiced person
may utilize it. The author is not to be ac-
cused of bias. He is a journalist of great
distinction and his aim is to comb for
truth.
There is an added purpose for this
commentator in tackling Shipler's
achievement. He was awarded a Joseph
Pulitzer coveted recognition.
Joseph Pulitzer (1847-1911), is listed
in all American Jewish records among the
Continued on Page 30
An Eminent Journalist Assays Jewish History
What induces a very prominent jour-
nalist to write A History of the Jewish Peo-
ple? Paul Johnson, acknowledged as one
of England's most illustrious journalists,
has chosen that subject in the just issued
Harper & Row volume. He is already ac-
claimed for his The History of Christiani-
ty and other works which lend him the
recognition as an historian. He explains
his fascination with his Jewish topic in
the prologue to his book in which he
points to the curiosity that arose when he
wrote the history of Christianity. He
became aware of Christianity's debt to
Judaism. He began to write "about the
people who had given birth to my faith."
"The span of Jewish history" then ad-
ditionally enamored him. Also, "the huge
areas covered by Jewish history" served
as a reason for his writing on the subject.
Then, "the intractable of all human ques-
tions" related to the chosen topic en-
couraged him in his latest historical task.
Paul Johnson's new work contains on-
ly 644 pages. Not many historical records
of any people can be condensed into such
limited space. Therefore it should be in-
dicated that Johnson has not written
"The" history of the Jewish people but "A"
history. Therefore the fact that what he
has compiled is the basic record for a story
of a people that excites as much interest
as it has prejudice. Therefore the emphasis
that Paul Johnson has written a very im-
portant essay on the subject, assaying the
many important facets in a people's life
and history.
2
Friday, May 22, 1987
Perhaps he has taken on too much to
deal with theology. This stems from his
concerns in his history of Christianity.
Some readers may be annoyed with the
amount of space he gives to circumcision,
while other important facts are omitted.
It is when he deals with the basic facts
that his emphases become vital. He
emerges strong and realistic when he
deals with the Holocaust, when he judges
the results of Israel's emergence into
statehood.
The massive anti-Semitic literature
that led to horror after horror in treat-
ment of the Jews and in the obstacles in
the path of redemption are assembled in
the Johnson history. In the course of his
treatment of the vast subject, he exposes
the prejudices and the many sins which
created struggle after struggle for the
Jewish people in the battle for life. Israel
is portrayed as the courageous triumph,
the justice attained in that struggle.
Very effective is the treatment and the
resume on the Holocaust. In a contem-
porary period, when Shoah called atten-
tion to the bestialities caused by Nazism
and those who collaborated with them, at
a time when a deeply moving episode like
Escape From Sobibor was televised that
Paul Johnson calls attention to the
massiveness of the crimes.
There is a summary by Johnson which
compels attention. He repudiates defense
of their attitudes by some Germans who
claim they did not know what was hap-
pening. He disproves it effectively. He
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
shows the totality of the murders. He also
points to the few who helped Jews. Thus,
this summary:
The speed with which their
gas chambers worked was
awesome. Treblinka had ten of
them, each accommodating 200
people at a time. It was Hoss's
boast that at Auschwitz each of
his gas chambers could take 2,000.
Using Zyklon-B gas crystals, the
five Auschwitz chambers could
murder 60,000 men, women and
children every 24 hours. Hoss said
that he murdered 400,000
Hungarian Jews alone (as well as
other groups) during the summer
of 1944, and that in total 'at least'
2,500,000 humans (Jews and non-
Jews) were gassed and in-
cinerated at Auschwitz, plus
another half-million who died of
starvation and disease. For many
months in 1942, 1943 and 1944, the
Nazis were each week killing in
cold blood over 100,000 people,
mainly Jews .. .
The German people knew
about and acquiesced in the
genocide. There were 900,000 of
them in the SS alone, plus another
1,200,000 involved in the railways.
The trains were one giveaway.
Most Germans knew the
significance of the huge, crowded
trains rattling through the hours
of darkness, as one recorded
remark suggests: 'Those damned
Jews, they won't even let one sleep
at night!' THe Germans were
beneficiaries of murder. Scores of
thousands of men's and women's
watches, fountain-pens and pro-
pelling pencils, stolen from the
victims, were distributed among
the armed forces; in one six-week
period alone, 222,269 sets of men's
suits and underclothes, 192,652
sets of women's clothing, and
99,922 sets of children's clothes,
collected from the gassed at
Auschwitz, were distributed on
Germany's Home Front. The reci-
pients knew roughly where these
came from.
The Germans did very little to
protest about what was being
done to the Jews or to help Jews
escape. But there were exceptions.
In Berlin, at the very heart of
Hitler's empire, several thousand
of the city's 160,000 Jews manag-
ed to escape by going under-
ground, becoming `U-boats' as
they were called. In each case it
meant some connivance and
assistance by non-Jewish
Germans.
While much in Johnson's is immense-
ly impressive, as the judgment on
historical records by a Christian student,
Continued on Page 30