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Page 4 The Southern Israelite <*>&<*> f*\r* People speak so glibly of a person as being a Jew. What is meant by that designation? Are there certain eharaeter- istics whieh are an inextric able part of the trutke-up of the American Jew? Mr. Men tor has discussed the qnes- What Is A Jew? A Conversation with Joseph Auslander, Eminent American Poet By HENRY MONTOR Written for The Southern Israelite tion with Joseph Auslander, one of America’s foremost poets—and a Jew—The Edi tor. There are many types of people in cluded under the designation “Jew.” There are Walter Lippmann and George Jean Nathan. There is Char lie Chaplin. There is Dr. Stephen S. Wise. There is Felix Warburg. There is Bernard Baruch. There is Rabbi Meyer Berlin. There is Fannie Hurst. And there is Joseph Auslander. What is the strange anomaly which permits each of these aforementioned people to be clnimed as a Jew by professional Jew-claimers? They obviously do not subscribe to the same religious tenets. Still more obviously they are as wide apart as the poles on the question of the na tionality of the Jew. Some of them, in fact, would rather not be claimed so eagerly. Nevertheless, when Jew ish publications list the contributions of Jews to civilization they are not hesitant about including any of the names which have been used. The fact was brought home to me by Joseph Auslander, one of Ameri ca’s distinguished poets, that those individuals whose names loom largest in the contemporary history of Ameri ca are in most instances far removed from their people and their problems. For every Julius Rosenwald there are ten Albert Michelsons. For every Stephen Wise there are a hundred David Belascos. For every Henrietta Szold there are a thousand Edna Ferbers. But statisticians insist upon figuring that there are approximately four and a half million Jews in this country. Presumably this number includes the voluntary and the involuntary Jews. With some doubt in my mind as to the category in which he might be placed I went to see Joseph Auslander, poet by inclination as well as by vocation. His latest collection of verses, “Let ters to Women,” had won most of the national prizes—'both of a critical and of a monetary nature—that are dis tributed. He has the soft, round features of an East European wonder rabbi. This relationship is accepted by a high forehead almost slipping back into baldness. His sonorous voice has a southern inflection. But he has not the repose of the wonder-working sages. Gestures are an integral part of his speech. Eyes flashing, body swaying, finger pointing, he has all the superfic'al characteristics of that race of prophets with which many Jews too easily identify themselves. “Do you consider yourself a Jew?” A rather discourteous question to ask a host but I had to have common ground for the subject which I in tended discussing. I had no idea what I meant when I asked the question, but it served as an opening wedge. “Of course,” was Auslander’s reply; but it was said with none of that saccharin with which people who have products to sell laud the virtues of their customers. “I am never oppressed by the feel ing that I am a Jew; I am often ex alted by it; but I am always aware of it.” There was just a slight touch of the pose of the epigrammatist in that sentence. There was much conviction in the tone and such sonorousness in the rhythm of the phrases as he ut tered them that I could not help feel ing, however, that Auslander was dis tinctly not being clever but rather sincere. “I never say that I am proud of be ing a Jew. My being born a Jew is not a virtue for which I can claim credit. I don’t understand the type which patronizingly says: ‘I am proud to be a Jew’ as though the glorious traditions of the Jewish people were the individual creation of that person. I can only feel proud of being a Jew when I do something that adds to the sum total of Jewish cultural values, when I myself do something that makes me a part of the unique history of the race. In the same sense I am proud to be a poet. It is obviously absurd for every one who utters that phrase to claim automatic kinship with Byron, Keats and Shelly. When I write a poem which meets with my most critical approval and which con stitutes an addition to poetic litera ture I may be justified in saying: ‘I’m proud to be a poet’.” Washington (J. T. A.)—A bill which would give the Secretary of Labor discretion to admit 15,000 im migrants per year free of any quota limitations in cases where the “dic tates of humanity and justice de mand” was introduced yesterday into the House of Representatives by Con gressman William Sirovich of New York. This bill would take care for ex ample, Congressman Sirovich said, of orphans having American relatives and other cases of extreme hardship and separation of families now barred by technicalities in the law. Another provision of the bill proposes a change in the present law by restricting pref erence visas for agriculturist to five per cent of the quota, instead of twenty-five per cent which Congress man Sirovich said is now allotted to this class under the law which sets aside fifty per cent of the quota for sharing between certain relatives and It was inevitable that after this we should drift into a rambling discus sion of the attributes of the Jew. The hackneyed question as to whether a person is a Jew by race, religion or accident received casual treatment, Auslander giving it his view that most American Jews never really thought about the subject but that if they did they might have to admit that it was the accident of birth and the habits of tradition which made them Jews. I was not at Auslander’s studio to convert him to any brand of Judaism, and he did not conceive it as his obli gation to convert me. The result was a frank discussion of qualities and characteristics which many people pre fer to leave undiscussed, because bringing them to the surface is likely to have an unpleasant aftermath. “There was a time when being a Jew meant having a certain mental and moral color. But that is not true to-day. In America we have a vast conglomeration of individuals collec tively known as Jews but bearing little relation to each other. The American Jew has no identity which sets him apart from his fellow men. He has no message and no mission. The mental and physical ideals of his neighbors find their duplicate in his own mind. He has not the moial in tegrity which inflamed the prophets and which gave to the Jewish people an aura which has lasted to this very day. To be a Jew today means any thing that the individual Jew wishes it to mean. Cohesiveness and domi nating moral purpose have vanished.” agriculturists. Congressman Sirovich’s bill provides that this difference of twenty per cent should be set aside for preference to brothers, sisters, cous ins, uncles, aunts, nephews and nieces. Explaining his bill, Congressman Sirovich declared that he really fa vors eliminating visas to non-prefer ence quota immigrants entirely and confining quota visas to relatives only because the number of quota immi grants allowed to enter annually is so small. He said relatives would have a much better economic opportunity in America, whereas non-relatives must inevitably experience a difficult strug gle with no one to assist them. He further declared that there is a great moral justification for reuniting rela tives. Congressman Sirovich said that Chairman Johnson of the House Im migration Committee had expressed himself as being sympathetically in clined toward the bill. <❖>&<*> ptyfc I may be taking liberties with Auv lander’s words, but I believe I a „ transmitting his thoughts. The reader must not obtain the impression that Auslander is of the type easily ar .d fanatically identified as an “assimil*. tionist.” He was merely expressing the dilemma with which he is con fronted when he asks h mself: ‘ What are my obligations as a Jew—what responsibilities do I bear to my people —what is there which links me with other Jews?” Auslander was deeply moved when the disorders in Palestine took place. His keen sympathy with the Jews of Palestine was expressed in one of the most beautiful poems he has written. There are other occasions when with out conscious volition he has identified himself with the Jewish people—but it was not a matter of principle or con viction. It was a purely subsconscious reaction. It is in the same spirit that Auslander resents evidences of anti- Semitism. Joseph Auslander is not impressed with the American Jewish community. “Adversity drives the Jews together; prosperity draws them apart. With material influence the Jew isolates himself as a Jew from other Jews. This phenomenon is to be observed on every hand in this country.” What is the future of the Jew in America? Auslander admitted that he has never thought deeply about the matter. In that respect he is Ike ninety-nine per cent of his fellow Jews. Neither have they immersed them selves in the problem. American Jewry drifts along, content with its evidences of greater Judaism as exemplified by larger synagogues, lulled by the feel ing that the Jewish community is be ing enlarged as witnessed by increas ing population statistics. But whether being a Jew connotes any particular distinction, or whether the American Jewish community as a whole is more than a tenuous appellation are prob lems that may be discussed when they become subjects for the archaeologist In Joseph Auslander American Jewry has one of the finest represen tatives. But the kinship is rather to Jehudah Halevi and Chaim Bialik than to the average Jew. “The poetic attitude to the world is a distinctly Hebraic one,” Auslander says. By which he means that compassion with humanity, wrath at injustice, irony at folly and sympathy with the weak are characteristics that have disting uished some of the great priests, pro phets and poets among the Jews. The son of a liberal father, a uct of Harvard, a disciple of the ro manticists, Joseph Auslander is a P 0 * who faces realities. He has the interests of the cosmopolitan and t keen sensitivity of the solitaire, he the wide tolerance of the uni\ersais^ but also the stem sense of justice 0 the Jew. In reality, Joseph Auslan e should be “proud to be a Jew.” —Copywright 1929 By Feature Syndicate. NEW' IMMIGRATION RILL WOULD ADMIT 75,000 ABOVE QUOTA I IS “HUMANITY AND JUSTICE” CASES