jews in the d

Jewish Contributions to Humanity

#1 in a series

These Writers
Made Us Laugh,
Cry and Think.

Dorothy Parker

Shmuel Yosef Agnon

Nadine Gordimer

LUCAS COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE

DOROTHY PARKER (1893-1967).

Damon Joseph, 21, of Holland, Ohio, was arrested Dec. 7 after planning a terror attack on a pair
of Sylvania, Ohio, synagogues.

Terror Threat
Near Toledo

Ohio man arrested for threatening attack
on local synagogues.

JACKIE HEADAPOHL MANAGING EDITOR

A

21-year-old man from
Holland, Ohio, was arrested
by the FBI Friday, Dec. 7,
for planning an attack on local
synagogues. FBI agents arrested
Damon M. Joseph after he took
possession of two semi-automatic
rifles to allegedly be used in his
attack on two synagogues in
Sylvania, a suburb of Toledo. Those
two synagogues were Conservative
Congregation B’nai Israel and
Reform Temple Shomer Emunim,
which both sit on the Jewish
Community Center campus in
Sylvania.
Joseph was charged last week
in federal court with one count
of attempting to provide material

support to ISIS. If convicted, he
faces up to 20 years behind bars.
“Damon Joseph was allegedly
inspired by ISIS’ call to violence
and hate. He planned to attack the
victims, based on their religion, at a
Toledo-area synagogue in the name
of ISIS, and hoped that it would
lead to the deaths of many and
spread fear,” said Assistant Attorney
General for National Security John
C. Demers.
“His alleged actions would be an
assault on the liberties and respect
for humanity we hold so dear. We
will continue to make every effort
to prevent such attacks from
occurring.”

b. Long Branch, New Jersey. d. New York, New York.
The Algonquin humorist.
A renowned humorist, satirist, and poet, Dorothy Parker grew up on Manhattan’s Upper
West Side, and had quite the tumultuous and unhappy childhood. But like many writers
and humorists, out of that pain Parker managed to produce creativity, selling her first poem
to Vanity Fair in 1914. She also became a regular writer for The New Yorker, and her short
stories and poems became nationally popular for their wit and commentary on 20th century
urban life. Parker was one of the founding members of the Algonquin Round Table, an
unofficial group comprising an elite class of New York writers and socialites who lunched
daily at the Algonquin Hotel. In the mid-30s, Parker and her husband Alan Campbell moved
west to pursue screenwriting in Hollywood, where Parker was nominated for Oscars for A
Star Is Born and Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman.

SHMUEL YOSEF AGNON (1888-1970).

b. Buchach, Ukraine. d. Jerusalem, Israel.
Nobel Prize in Literature 1966. He chronicled the Golden Age.
Known as Shai Agnon in Hebrew, and published as S.Y. Agnon, Shmuel Yosef Agnon is one
of modern Hebrew fiction’s central figures. Agnon was educated in Hebrew, Yiddish, and classic
Jewish works. His father was close with the Chassidic Jews of the time, while his mother was
close with their Orthodox opponents, known as the “Mitnagdim.” Many of Agnon’s works drew
upon his upbringing in shtetl Europe and chronicled Jewry’s decline in Galicia, while others drew
upon his experiences in Palestine, where he moved in 1907. Agnon’s first major publication,
in 1922, was Hakhnasat Kalah (The Bridal Canopy), and was widely renowned for its telling of
Chassidic Jewry’s golden age in Eastern Europe. What is considered his greatest work, Temol
Shilshom (Only Yesterday), chronicles the Second Aliyah period of 1904-1914, and is a must-
read for anyone learning about modern Israel’s early history. When Agnon was awarded the
Nobel Prize in 1966, he was considered the greatest living Jewish writer. In his acceptance
speech, Agnon, referencing his European roots, said, “I was born in one of the cities of the Exile.
But always I regarded myself as one who was born in Jerusalem.”

NADINE GORDIMER (1923-2014).

b. Springs, South Africa. d. Johannesburg, South Africa
Nobel Prize in Literature 1991. A white writer who fought apartheid.
A South African writer of novels and short stories, Nadine Gordimer’s works were a leading
force in the anti-apartheid movement. So much so that the government banned three of her
books during the apartheid era of 1948 to 1994 — A World of Strangers, The Late Bourgeois
World, and Burger’s Daughter. By 1960, Gordimer was already a published and known writer,
but it took the arrest of her best friend and the Sharpeville massacre to prompt her involvement
in the anti-apartheid movement. She became close friends with Nelson Mandela’s attorneys,
and helped Mandela edit his famous “I Am Prepared to Die” speech. Gordimer joined the African
National Congress when it was still an illegal group, and hid some members in her house when
the government sought their arrest. Ironically, some of her most challenging times came when
the Black Consciousness Movement tried to exclude whites from the anti-apartheid movement.
When she was criticized for trying to tell the stories of black characters through the eyes of a
white author, she responded, “There are things that blacks know about whites that we don’t
know about ourselves…and the other way about.”

Original Research by Walter L. Field Sponsored by Irwin S. Field Written by Jared Sichel

continued on page 18

jn

December 20 • 2018

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