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Page 7 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.