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The Southern Israelite
Ludwig Vogelsteim “ Lender Of Judnisrn
Interviewed for The Southern Israelite
Hy P. W. WILSON
(This article, written by
Mr. Wilson, internationally
known publicist and contribu
tor to the New York Times
and other American and
English periodicals, portrays
the life and ideals of Lud
wig Vogelstein, who will be
in Atlanta March 30-31 to at
tend the First Southeastern
convention of the Union of
American Hebrew Congrega
tions).
Amid the staccato percussions of
those mechanical kettledrums the rat
tle of which proclaims the soaring
ambition of a new skyscraper, I made
my way along a Wall Street that was
still subdued somewhat by the severity
of a recent slump. Lower Broadway,
that grand canon of an audacious ar
chitecture, was automobilious with
the congestion of hooting motorcars,
and it was an elevator of cold hard
steel that shot me upwards, twenty
floors or so, towards the heavens
above, in which celestial regions I
found myself in a maze of glass and
concrete and still more steel, where as
it seemed, the chairs alone, includ
ing leather, were so gracious as to
yield a little to the human form di
vine. Such was the stronghold, more
solid in its bastions, more towering in
its buttresses than any baron’s castle,
in the recesses of which was entrench
ed the economic authority of the
American Metal Company.
Across the mind, there floated vis
ions of miners, blasting astonished
rocks, of vast trains, loaded with ore,
that thundered through blackened
tunnels, of furnaces in which the ore
was passed through the fire to Mam
mon, of chemists silently studying test
tubes and acids and decimals, of
thousands of tickers, typewriters and
telephones; and it was out of this
mirage of modern industry that,
through an open door, there stepped
a man.
I was punctual to the minute; so
was he. We met, as they say, on the
dot, which was why we did meet. For
here was a man who kept time by two
clocks. First, there was the watch
on his wrist; next the chronology of
the w’atch was corrected by the still
more accurate progress of a diplo
matic cigar. For half an hour Lud
wig Vogelstein, courteous, communi
cative, attentive, was entirely at your
service. Except that conversation, he
did not seem to have a thought in
this world. But when the cigar had
reached its minimum, the interview
was over and anything further was
an encroachment.
The man could detach himself.
Here he was surrounded by activities,
industrial, financial, scientific. On
the exchanges, minute by minute,
prices were fluctuating. Yet he did
not allude even by a hint, to lead
and copper and zinc. So remote did he
seem to be from the seething metro
polis around us, that he might have
been in a monastery, brooding over
subconscious instincts, trying to ad
just eternity to the terms of time,
and mysticism to the measure of rea
son. Sometimes I think that it was
not the brothers Wright, but the
prophet Ezekiel whose imagination in
vented the airplane. Seeing the pot
ter’s wheel, the chariot wheel, the
water-wheel, and watching the lightn
ing, as it leaped from the celestial
power-house, he had the genius to en
visage machinery, a spark-driven de
science. Hence, there are suggestions
of the spiritual which he sets on one
side. The persistent and recurrent
ceremonial of the orthodox Jew, ac
companying every act of every day
with the appropriate prayer, is to
Mr. Vogelstein a system of piety
which cannot be reconciled with the
duty of man to man. “I stand for
religion,” says he, ‘‘and am opposed
to the dominance of the merely ma
terial.” But by religion, he means
the famous maxim of the prophet
Micah, ‘‘What doth the Lord require
of thee but to do justly, to love mercy
and walk humbly with thy God?”
As with ceremonial, so with creed.
He sweeps away the elaborations and
seeks to arrive at what he holds to
LUDWIG VOGELSTEIN
vice, that, wheels within wheels,
would even fly through the air like a
bird, yet would include the face of a
man and would obey man’s will. Such
a man amid the machines is Ludwig
Vogelstein.
Carefully trained in scientific equa
tions, his thought cannot be other
than equitable. He knows precisely
what he does know.
About what he believes to be the
unknown, he does not waste his time.
Yet in defining his faith, Mr. Vogel
stein, so explicit, so lucid, is warmed
by his enthusiasm into an eloquence
all the more compelling because it is
so utterly unintended. He speaks
seldom and only after careful prep
aration. But—an instance, not long
ago, was an address in San Fran
cisco—his utterances, by the sheer
weight of this persuasive solidity,
have evoked an unusual response. He
is a layman who voices what multi
tudes of laymen—by no means con
fined to the Synagogue—are thinking.
“I am a Liberal,” he declares
frankly, and this is the fact. For
the formulas of theology, he has sub
stituted the exactitudes of physics,
and he recognizes no dogma that con
flicts with the truth, discovered by
be the essentials. He recognizes that
the immigration of the last thirty
years has resulted in a numerical pre
dominance of orthodox Jews. But he
is convinced that this orthodoxy will
be influenced in due course by the at
mosphere of a new world of civil and
religious liberty. ‘‘It is unthinkable,”
he says, ‘‘that the Jews of the United
States will live for all time in a me
diaeval Ghetto” In his estimate of
Judaism, he is thus curiously detach
ed. He disclaims point blank any per
sonal sympathy with Zionism, holding
without compromise that a Jew should
be a loyal citizen of the country where
he lives. Also he is much impressed
by the racial varieties which are in
cluded in the Jewish community. Any
claim that Judaism is homogeneous in
ancestry should be, he thinks, dis
missed. In Jew and Gentile, there is,
he holds, an admixture of blood, by no
means always realized.
Yet if ever there were a leader of
Judaism, it is Ludwig Vogelstein. ‘‘I
could never become a Christian,” he
says, with decision, “never.” Cen
turies hence, so he is inclined to think,
the Christian and Jew may grow
gradually into a larger unity, but not
in our life time. Hence, Mr. Vogel
stein pursues two aims. First, he is
active in America’s Goodwill Union,
that organization which seeks to as
sociate freedom of religion with
friendship between citizens. Every
thing of that kind has Mr. Vogel-
stein’s active sympathy. But, second
ly, he is among the builders of Ju-
daism itself. As Chairman of the
Executive Board of the Union of
American Hebrew Congregations, and
in many other capacities, he is serv
ing his generation. To the citizen
ship of the Jew, so he believes, the
Synagogue is a necessity. It is the
sacred society that fosters a law-abid
ing and God fearing people. An
educated rabbinate, educated teach
ers of the Jewish Sunday School, a
spiritual message for isolated commu
nities of Jews, and the best possible
literature and text books—all these
are among the objectives, to which he
gives his whole-hearted assent.
One can realize why this worshipful
realist is unconvinced by Christianity
What influences him is not only a
communal loyalty, emphasized by
agelong memories that include perse
cutions. Much of Christianity is
credal and ceremonial. In these
Churches, there is much that directs
the mind to another world than this.
Mr. Vogelstein does not believe that
human life is ended by death. He is
sure that there must be an immor
tality. But, on the other hand, he
thinks that the opportunities and ob
ligations of this present life are il
limitable, and that in making the
most of them which is our duty, we
may well leave the future to take
care of itself. That future, so he is
convinced, has been hidden from our
eyes by an Allwise Providence.
What Mr. Vogelstein sees, is thus
clearly seen. Deliberately, he allows
what he cannot see so clearly, to re
cede into the background. He be
lieves in God. But he holds that, li te
Moses in the niche of the rock, an>
man who seeks to turn his eyes, un
veiled, to the Diety, must expect that
he will be shielded from the too beati
fic vision by the hand of God binise •
To him, God is thus the best in M*
that we can find—the highest dui y.
the noblest ideal, the most de\o
service. Moreover, Mr. Vogels i >
following his faith, throws himse
with his whole heart into those ® r
of music and painting which are *
common heritage of mankind. ®
profession of music, he would
have devoted his life, and when e '® a
ordered otherwise, he became a ^ a - - r
of opera and the concert. To <-
to oneself, to be fair to other;-—
is the righteousness which he
ciates with the sublime will °
Eternal Father of all mankind-
He is now 59 years of age
the very plenitude of his P owers * he
sibly, he is a little wistfu ^ *
years of achievement '' * y
flown from him so swiftly,
winder, perhaps, whether, i ■
many years that lie ahead ot
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