I PURELY COMMENTARY
JPS: A Century Of Publishing Pride
cp\ \VUBL1CAT/04,
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor Emeritus
A
Century of Jewish Publication
Society's creativity is filled with
so many treasures, is steeped in
so many sentiments, is dominated by so
much genius, that the mere reviewing
of the produced texts is like a historic
dramatization. A volume entitled JPS
is defined as "The Americanization of
Jewish Culture — 1881-1988" and its
editor is Jonathan D. Sarna.
In both the definitive title and
authorship there are interesting factors.
The title has a noteworthy introductory
explanation that the story of JPS could
shed light on a centrally important
theme — "the development and shaping
of American Jewish culture. It receiv-
ed official JPS endorsement for such
tackling of a serious American Jewish
commitment.
In the authorship of this extensive
study the reader will meet important
personalities.
Sarna was compiling his historical
records for this volume while in
Jerusalem where he was the Lavy
Davis visiting associate professor at the
Hebrew University's Institute of Con-
temporary Jewry, and as visiting
associate professor of American Jewish
history at the Jerusalem campus of the
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute
of Religion.
In the expressions of appreciation to
scholars he had contacted for his tasks
are included "especially warm
acknowledgements . . . my parents
Nahum M. and Helen H. Sarna both
read every word of this volume, made
useful suggestions . . ."
The linking of these names, parents
and son of the distinguished Sarna
family, are important at this time in the
consideration of the JPS achievements
because of the simultaneous publica-
tion by JPS of JPS 7brah Commentaries
of which Dr. Nahum M. Sarna, professor
emeritus of Brandeis University, is
general editor and authored the com-
mentaries on Genesis and Exodus.
Genesis and Leviticus are the first of
the five volumes already published.
The works of both Sarnas must be
given special acclaim and are therefore
included, in advance of dealing with the
commentaries, as among the most im-
portant Jewish publishing products of
the century.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
(US PS 275-520) is published every Friday
with additional supplements the fourth
week of March, the fourth week of August
and the second week of November at
20300 Civic Center Drive, Southfield,
Michigan.
Second class postage paid at Southfield,
Michigan and additional mailing offices.
Postmaster: Send changes to:
DETROIT JEWISH NEWS, 20300 Civic
Center Drive, Suite 240, Southfield,
Michigan 48076
$26 per year
$33 per year out of state
60' single copy
Vol. XCVI No. 1
2
September 1, 1989
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1989
4.0•4•A._
&irea ts%,
(f)
.7432c%r°
= -P4%.
•
•
1888-1988
Jonathan Sarna's history of JPS
also has very important invitations to
a study of Jewish cultural experiences
in this country. The immensity of
analysis of publishing triumphs never-
theless contains an admission of
failures and shortcomings. In his
preface to JPS Dr. Sarna admits ex-
istence of a low level of culturism when
he asserts:
Many, to be sure, have be-
moaned the dearth of Jewish
cultural activity in America,
and just recently a respected
cultural historian has written
that American Jewry's "least
impressive feature . . . is its con-
tribution to Jewish culture
itself."
Having now read so much of
what JPS produced over the
past century, however, I am in-
clined to disagree. The problem,
as I have come to understand it,
lies not with the production of
Jewish culture in America, of
which there is a great deal, but
rather with its distribution and
consumption. Too much of what
is produced lies unsold, unread,
and unappreciated.
The "unsold, unread and unap-
preciated" rebuke is a reminder of an
old yarn about gift-giving to a bar mitz-
vah. Mr. X was asked what he planned
to give the son of his dearest friend at
the oncoming bar mitzvah feast. "Are
you planning to give him a book?" "I
should say not. I'll give him an um-
brella. He'll be sure to open that up."
There was an occasion here some
four decades ago when Rabbi Haas —
I forget his first name — came here to
solicit JPS memberships. They were
than $10 a year and you received at
least three books as a member. There
also was a life membership for $100 and
the reward was all the JPS books to be
published henceforth. Such bargains
are inconceivable now.
Rabbi Haas visited one of this com-
munity's most eminent men. He was
well received and his customer, one of
the city's most noted leaders and
philanthropists, a university graduate,
commended Rabbi Haas for his devotion
to cultural movements. He said he
believed education should be given
priority and he wished to become a life
member. "But," he added, "I am a very
busy man and have no time to read.
Give the books to Dora Ehrlich."
Relating this could be considered
bad taste in the treatment of so
valuable a task as the writing and
publishing of the history of the Jewish
Publication Society. But the historian
Dr. Sarna himself is realistic in his
recognition of facts. On the very first
page of the first JPS chapter he in-
dicates it by stating:
From a Jewish point of view,
pre-Civil War America was a
cultural wasteland. True, the
American Jewish population
had only recently attained the
fifty thousand mark, and Jews
formed less than one-quarter of
Jonathan Sarna
one percent of the overall
population. True also that
Abraham Rice, "in this country
American Jews, led by the in-
. . . the wisdom of the ages goes
defatigable Isaac Leeser, chazan
stale, the pious are scorned,
(reader) of Congregation
truth is lacking, and there is
Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia,
none on whom to depend save
were beginning to produce
our Father in Heaven.
basic-level Jewish books:
Detroiters had important shares in
prayerbooks, textbooks, ser-
JPS functions and developments. David
mons, polemics, and most im-
Rosenberg was editor of the society, in
portant of all, an English
the early 1980s.
translation of the Bible (1853).
Daniel Elazar is dinstinguished in
But these achievements —
the list of scholars whose works were
even including those of such
published by JPS.
secular Jewish notables as
The enlistment of sponsors of the
Mordecai M. Noah (1785-1851)
movement to assure publication of the
and Isaac Harby (1788-1828),
second revised translation of the Bible
both of them journalists,
commenced here in the mid-1950s. A
dramatists, and politicians —
reference to the fundraising in the Sar-
scarcely compared with Jewish
na history contains a footnote referring
literary productivity in Europe.
to the role in it by Leonard N. Simons.
According to the nation's
Detroiters who served on the JPS
leading Reform rabbi, Isaac
board of governors represent an impor-
Mayer Wise, among American
tant participating element. The first
Jews "ignorance swayed the
Detroiter in this groups was Louis
scepter and darkness ruled."
James Rosenberg, a JPS trustee from
According to the nation's
Continued on Page 40
best-known Orthodox rabbi,
Famous authors and JPS supporters at presentation of JPS centennial medallions: Ruth
Septee, Saul Bellow, Edward Elson, Nahum Sarna, Salo Baron and Cynthia Ozick.