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Page 6 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 (Continued on Page - the he