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The Southern Israelite
// hen Jews Are A Hobby
By PIERRE VAN PAASSEN
Noted correspondent of the Neiv York Evening World
r\K!> Two Rifted French writers,
the brothers Jerome and Jean Tharaud,
who owe their international literary
n largely to a number of es-
savs an d novels dealing with various
phases of Jewish life in Eastern Europe
and in Palestine, intend to cross the
ocean this summer with the object of
contemplating the American Jewish
scene for a spell, then to return to
their charming villa in Versailles for
the writing of the inevitable novel.
, nothing fiery or dynamic
about the Tharauds. To watch them
tto about their daily life, as I—a next-
door neighbor, you might say—can do,
provides a perfect picture of two easy
going middle-aged bachelors of bour
geois tastes and punctuality. In ap
pearance one of them, Jerome, might
easily he mistaken for a twin of Her
man Bernstein’s. I have never come
across a more striking resemblance,
which is not confined to physiognomy
but includes little peculiarities and
mannerisms like gait and a certain in
flection of the voice and other such
things which more than anything else,
perhaps, serve to set a man’s person
ality apart.
The Tharauds are not Jews. Yet their
specialty has been the Jewish theme.
They have written on Zionism and on
Galuth problems. They were among
the first non-Jewish observers to
visit the liberated Palestine. Long
before Ludwig Lewisohn traced the
rial and spiritual evolution of the
s of an East European ghetto
clan via the assimilationists’ illusion
to American prosperity and back home
to Judaism by way of a medical job
with the Joint in Rumania, the
Tharauds had mapped out the track
d to the “Island Within”. Jews,
in short, have been the hobby of the
two versatile brothers. A profitable
« it was, too, one may safely say.
In
'el vc
tun .
even
eyes
Jew-
and
preh
mas*
exot
the
selvt
tima
of ?;
Prim
ish
unra
their books they addressed them-
chiefly to a non-Jewish public,
drew delightfully colorful pic-
the ghetto in a half-amused,
utimental style. Under the deft
1 touch the Jew's became an
re curious and alien tribe than
1 ever been before in Gentile
I he brothers showed us the
>’• the depths of the Carpathians
■and as unworldly and incom-
ible creatures burdened with a
crude conventionalizations and
mysticism. At the same time
arauds did not concern them-
reatly with fundamentals or ul-
alues or any vaporous hasheesh
sort. They were entertainers
y. The unraveling of the Jew-
they left to the professional
vrs.
must say, has always seemed
xcellent procedure to me. For
n ly gives the reader who is
to wallow in the boggy
^quented by the illuminati an
fa'r ', ty \° steer clear of their un-
e imponderabilities, but he
Ever since the I harad brothers wrote their notorious book
When Israel Is King , they have been accused of being torch-
bearers ot anti-Semitism. When, a year later, they published
Next Year In Jerusalem non-Jews called them philo-Semitis.
In this article, especially written for THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE,
and Seven Arts Feature Syndicate, Pierre van Paassen. eminent
author and newsfxiper correspondent. analyzes and muses on these
two strange french literary figures who have made the exploration
of Jewish life in various countries their hobby.—The EDITOR.
may also, if the fancy strikes him, look
over in another direction at another
time, and contemplate the solemn an
tics of the metaphysicians getting
tangled up in their own sophisms and
philosophical wise-cracks. I don’t
know which is the most amusing.
Perhaps I am deficient in erudition
and am therefore incapable of seeing
the Jews as a mystical entity, like the
Holy Ghost, "not born, nor created or
begotten, but proceeding.” The ele
ments of the concrete w’orld suffice
me. It is a quite primitive creed, I
know. But the philosophers and the
whole scientific clan look too little to
nature to suit me. They never inter
rogate the earth and the sky; they
never listen to their fellows. There
fore they are always right. And they
are always w r rong, too, just like their
masters, the statisticians, the sociolo
gists with long formulas and the star-
chamber economists. Life always wrig
gles away from them. None of their
theories and figures and notions holds
it in place. Life escapes them, flees
and remains unfindable, because it
doesn’t fit into any doctrinaire frame,
though it be a golden one.
The Tharauds, as I said, did not
bother with doctrines. They reported
what they saw and did it well. But
the only time when they fell to theo
rizing they fell into hot water. Both
brothers were professors of french at
Budapest University. It was during
their vacations that they roamed about
Galicia and Bukovina, visiting Talmud
Torahs, trailing after miracle rabbis,
attending services in quaint old syna
gogues and the like. The resultant
stories aroused no controversy, pleased
many and brought in the odd franc.
I hen, one day, they got it into their
heads to explain the Bela Kun revolu
tion in Hungary. The book was called
“When Israel Is King!” The title
say a lot. All that bloody chaos of
the Hungarian Terror and counter
revolution was Israel's work, the Thar
auds said. It was the old theory of
Drumont fitted on to Hungary; the
alien Jew, the parasite, the stranger
harbored in the nation’s bosom, turn
ing traitor and delivering the noble
people into the hands of its enemies.
There is no doubt, of course, that Bela
Kun is a Jew ami that the majority
of the commissars and members of the
Revolutionary Tribunal in Hungary
were Jews. But to trot out the old
bogey of an international Jewish con
spiracy to wreck “Christian” civiliza
tion was enough to raise the accusa
tion of anti-Semitism against the two
brothers.
The Tharauds were not a little per
turbed at this. T hey rushed to Pales
tine, wrote "Next Year in Jerusalem!”
and “The Rose of Sharon", and thought
they had squared themselves, with the
Gentiles at any rate. Things haven’t
quite turned out as they hoped. One
hears them spoken of today, alter
nately, as ardent philo-Scmites in non-
Jewish circles—and as ferocious anti-
Semites among Jews. I don’t think
they are either. Practically every (joy
is mildly anti-Semitic at heart. In
some it becomes virulent. Why should
the Tharauds be an exception?
That very hook, “When Israel is
King,” incidentally, led to a diplomatic
incident over which the liberal press
of America spilled gallons of ink. The
Tharaud brothers launched a wither
ing attack on Count Michel Karolyi in
that volume. If a tenth of their charges
could be substantiated Karolyi is a
ruthless scoundrel and a perfidious cus
tomer. The American State Depart
ment’s agents apparently put great
stock in the Tharaud brothers’ argu
ments, with the well-known result
that Count Karolyi and his spouse were
refused admittance into America and
the Hon. Frank B. Kellogg earned the
nickname of “Nervous Nelly in the
process.” (The Count did ultimately
get into the United States and is there
at this writing.)
There arc other little things in the
Tharaud books which did not please
the Jews of I*ranee. For instance,
they tell a story of little Jewish boys
passing a statue of Christ on the way
to school somewhere in East Galicia
and averting their faces while spitting
fiercely on the ground and uttering
"the traditional malediction of Israel"
taught them by their elders: “Cursed
be T hou, Galilean, founder of a new
religion!” It’s a delicious touch 1 I
pity the little Jewish boys of Rome—
or Brooklyn, proud “city of churches"
—if that malediction really is tradi
tional and must be pronounced when
ever an Israelite passes a Christian
shrine or statue. It’s a matter to be
taken up by the famous “Permanent
Commission on Better Understanding
Between Christians and Jews in Amer
ica.” I suggest the Jews on that body
try at least to make the cursing op
tional for their brethren. Liberty or
conscience, you know I Didn’t our
fathers fight for it? The (jannefst
Just another word on the Tharauds.
Their manner of work and collabora
tion is probably unique in the world
of letters. The titles of their books
bear both their names. But no man
has ever been found who could de
tect which part was Jean’s and which
Jerome’s in the smooth and lucid sub
stance. They write in the first per
son singular. And when you ask which
of the two had this or that personal
experience mentioned in the text they
look surprised and say: "Both of us,
of course!” Recently they put out a
volume of reminiscences of Maurice
Barres, the French nationalist. This
book also is written in the first person
singular. And rightly so. For both
served as secretary to Barres, and that
simultaneously. The same applied to
the professorship in Budapest. The
brothers have been inseparable all their
lives. One would have to search long
in the annals of literature for such a
singular co-operation and like-minded
ness, especially between sons of the
same father and mother.
(Copyright, 1930, by S. A. F. S.)
THE SIGHTSEER
These are the things I have seen today:
A crown of gold on a head of grey;
A broken egg where a nest fell down;
A withered wife in a crimson gown;
A row of flowers bright and tall
Beside a lofty prison wall;
Silver leaves for a coming rain
And the blood red sun on a broken pane;
These are the things I have seen today—
The sun of gold in a sky of grey.
—Kathleen Millay.