RESTAURANT

about the Holocaust
and pride in Israel have
served as the two dri-
ving forces that have
kept American Judaism
vibrant.
Yet, he sees these two
forces dissipating, and
believes that the only
way for Judaism to sur-
vive is through Jewish
education, including the
studying of Yiddish cul-
ture, the Talmud and
Kabbala.
For Wouk, the chal-
lenge is for Jewish lead-
ers to "reclaim the
Yiddishkeit they them-
selves may lack."
Wouk's deep concern
for the survival of
Judaism and his strong
religious beliefs are a
direct result of his own
personal history. Born
in New York City to
Russian immigrant par-
ents in 1915, Judaism
was always a significant
part of his family's life.
Even when Wouk's father,
Abraham, struggled to put food on
the table, the family remained devout.
It was during his childhood that
Wouk became an expert in Torah and
Talmud, taught to him by his zayde.
By the time Wouk was a teenager,
his father's laundry business was thriv-
ing, and the family moved from the
Bronx to Manhattan's West Side.
After completing high school in
1932, Wouk enrolled at Columbia
University, where he majored in phi-
losophy and comparative literature
and edited the campus humor maga-
zine.
Following graduation, he landed a
job writing scripts and gags for Fred
Allen in radio comedy. But his career
was put on hold when he entered the
Navy during World War II; he was
stationed in the South Pacific.
Wouk was out at sea when his first
novel, Aurora Dawn, was published.
The young author had sent the first
couple of chapters to his friend and
professor at Columbia University,
Irwin Edman, who passed them along
to an editor in New York. Shortly
afterward, Wouk received a publishing
contract in the mail.
Still, he did not catapult into liter-
ary fame until 1951, when his Pulitzer
Prize-winning The Caine Mutiny was
published. Since then, most of his
books have been New York Times best-

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sellers, including Marjorie
Morningstar, Inside, Outside and the
epics The Winds of War and War and
Remembrance. All his works are metic-
ulously researched and provide an in-
depth portrait of a particular slice of
the world.
Wouk says he never had any
inkling that his books would become
classics. "It has gone immeasurably
beyond my youthful ambitions," he
notes. "I have no way of knowing
whether my books will be read beyond
my lifetime. It is encouraging that half
a century after early works like Mutiny
and Marjorie were written they are still
in print, still read and discussed."
In a true sign of Wouk's popularity,
Hollywood bought movie rights to
several of his works. But the author
feels the movie versions of his novels
vary greatly in merit.
"By far the best of the Hollywood
treatments were the two mini-series
[The Winds of War and War and
Remembrance]," he remarks. "The
casting and the productions were very
good.
"Robert Mitchum made a memo-
rable naval officer, Victor Henry, and
in the second film, John Gielgud was
magnificent as the old Jewish author*
trapped in Nazi Europe, Aaron
Jastrow.
"The scripts of the other films were
not as good, but Natalie Wood made
an appealing Marjorie Morningstar,
and, of course,. Humphrey Bogart

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